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CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



PROCEEDINGS 



IN CONNECTION WITH THE 



SEFTEMIBKR 14th, 1864, 



TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 



I / 



INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN OF DARTMOUTH. 



PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF NEW BEDFORD. 



0.1%} ISeUforti, Mass. 

E. ANTHONY & SONS, PRINTERS, 67 UNION STREET. 

1865. 

} 



At a meeting of the Committee of Arrangements, Octo- 
ber 25tli, 1864, James B. Congdon, the secretary, was 
requested to arrange for publication the addresses and 
other proceedings connected with the Centennial Celebra- 
tion. 



r 



CONTENTS 



Proceedings of the City Council .... 9 

Proceedings of the Committee of Arrangements - 11 

Order of Exercises at the Church - - - - 17 

Proceedings at the Church and at the City Hall - 21 
Description of the Photographs of the Early 

Dartmouth Records 33 

Address to the People of Dartmouth, England - 37 

Letters from Invited Guests 43 

Address of His Honor George Howland, Jr., 

Mayor of New Bedford 61 

Address of William W. Crapo - - - - 69 

Poem by James B. Congdon 105 



/^ 



At a meeting of the City Council, October Gtli, 1864, 
it was 

Ordered, That five hundred copies of the proceedings 
on the occasion of the Centennial Celebration on the 
14th day of September, 1864, and of the Addresses and 
Poem then delivered, be published under the direction 
of the committee of arrangements. 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



CITY COUNCIL, 



ANBOF THE 



COMMITTEE OF AEMNQEMENTS. 



CEWTEN^IAL CELEBMTIOJN' 



Mayor's Office, 

City op New Bedford, 

2d mo. 11th, 1864. 
To the City Council : 

Gentlemen, I herewith transmit to you an extract from 
the records of the Plymouth Colony, from which it appears 
that the town of Dartmouth, which included within its limits 
the territory embraced within our city, was established in 
June, 1664: and believing it might be satisfactory to many 
of our citizens, that some public notice should be taken of 
the return of the Second Centennial Anniversary of that 
event, permit me to suggest for your consideration the 
propriety of the adoption by the City Council of such 
measures for the commemmoration of that event, at some 
time during the coming summer, perhaps in the month of 
June, as in your judgment may be called for. 

GEORGE ROWLAND, Jun., Mayor. 

In Board of Aldermen, 

February 11th, 1864. 

Rclerrcd to a Joint Special Committee of two of which the 
Mayor shall be one, with such as the other branch may join. 
HENRY T. LEONARD, City Cleric. 

In Common Council, 

February 11th, 1864. 
Concurred. 

W. A. CHURCH, Clerk. 



10 



C OMllMITTEE. 



His Honor, GEORGE HOWLAND, Jun., Mayor. 

Alderman JOHN P. BARKER. 

Councilmen, Messrs. CORNELIUS HOWLAND, 

GEORGE F. KINGMAN, and 

DANIEL HOMER. 

By subsequent orders of the City Council the sum of 
one thousand dollars was placed at the disposal of the 
committee, and five hundred copies of the proceedings 
directed to be published. 



EXTRACT 



FKOM THE 



PLYMOUTH COLONY RECORDS. 

COURT ORDERS. 
1664 
June 8 

Att this Court, all that tractc of land called and 
known by the name of Acushena, Ponagansett and Coaksett 
is allowed by the Court to bee a townshipe : and the 
inhabitants thereof have libertie to make such orders as 
may conduce to theire good in towne consernments : and 
that the said towne bee hencforth called and knowne by the 
name of Dartmouth. 

Fourth Book Court Orders, page 72. 



11 



The following notice was sent to the chairmen of the 
boards of selectmen of Dartmouth, Westport, Fairhaven, 
and Acushnet. 

CITY OF NEW BEDFORD. 

Mayor's Office, 

8th mo. 17th, 18G4. 

To , Chairman of tlie hoard of 

selectmen of. : 

My friend, You are, with your colleagues of the board, 
respectfully requested to attend a meeting of the selectmen 
of Dartmouth, Westport, Fairhaven, and Acushnet, and of 
the committee of the city council of New Bedford, to be 
held at the mayor's office in the City Hall of said city, 
on the 19th instant, at 11 o'clock in the forenoon, for 
the purpose of making arrangements for the Centennial 
Celebration on the 7th of next month. 

Respectfully, 

GEORGE HOWLAND, Jun., Mayor. 

The Trustees of the Free Public Library, having taken 
some action expressive of their interest in the proposed 
celebration, a committee of that body, consisting of its 
President the Mayor of the city, and Messrs. James B. 
Congdon and Henry J. Taylor, was requested to co-operate 
with the committee of the council in making the necessary 
arrangements. 

MEETING OF COMMITTEE. 

August 19 th, 1864. 

Present, His Honor the Mayor, and Messrs. Taylor, 
Kingman, and Congdon, of New Bedford. 

From Dartmouth. Jireh Sherman and Calvin K. Turner, 
2d, Esquires. 



12 



From Westport. Ezra P. Browncll, Esq. 

From Fairhaven. Barth'w. Taber and Ellery T. Taber, 
Esquires. 

From Acuslmet. Hon. Cyrus E. Clark and Walter 
Spooner, Esq. 

The mayor gave a welcome to the gentlemen from the 
neighboring towns, and informed them that the committee 
had fixed upon Wednesday, the 7th day of September next, 
for the celebration, and that William W. Crapo had 
consented to deliver an address and James B. Congdon a 
poem on the occasion. The object of the present meeting 
was to complete the arrangements. 

The action of the city committee was approved by the 
meeting, after substituting the 14th, instead of the 7th, as 
the day for the celebration. 

The meeting then proceeded to make all the necessary 
arrangements for the occasion. 

Henry J. Taylor, Esq., was appointed Marshal of the 
day. 

It was decided to have the exercises at the church of the 
First Christian Society, and a collation at the City Hall 
after the proceedings at the church should be over. 

The following form of a notice was agreed upon and 
ordered to be published in the city papers. 

CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 

To the Sons and Daughters of Old Dartmouth abroad, 

the undersigned, on behalf of the children at home, send 

Greeting. 

Two Hundred Years Ago 

" The tracte of land called and known by the name of 
Acushnet, Ponagansett and Coaksett was allowed by the 
Court to bee a townshipe : — to bee henceforth called and 
knownc by the name of Dartmouth." 



l: 



The villages which then formed the town of Dartmouth, 
now constitute the towns of Dartmouth, Westport, Fairhaven, 
and Acushnct, and the city of New Bedford. 

On the 14:th day of September next it is proposed to 
commemorate in New Bedford, by appropriate exercises, 
the completion of the second century since the incorporation 
of the parent town. 

Our greeting is extended to all who, by birth, descent, 
marriage or former residence, may be supposed to feel an 
interest in the occasion. 

To all such we cordially extend an invitation to unite 
with us in our Family Re-union. 

We know that it will gladden our hearts, we trust it may 
yours, to meet as one household, upon the spot, consecrated 
by our fathers " two hundred years ago " to whatever 
" might conduce to the good op the inhabitants in town 

concernments." 

George Howland, Jr., 

Mayor of New Bedford. 

Jireh Sherman, 
Chairman of Board of Selectmen of Dartmouth. 

Ezra P. Brownell, 
Chairman of Board of Selectmen of Westport. 

Barth'w Taber, 
Chairman of Board of Selectmen of Fairhaven. 

Cyrus E. Clark, 
Chairman of Board of Selectmen of Acushnet. 

PH-OaR-AMME. 

The following programme was prepared by order of 
the committee of arrangements and published in the city 
papers. 

Centennial Celebration: September 14th, 1864. 

The celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of 
the incorporation of the ancient town of Dartmouth, will 
take place at New Bedford on Wednesday, the 14th day 



14 



of September instant, under the direction of the several 
municipalities of Dartmouth, New Bedford, Westport, 
Fairhaven, and Acushnet. 

There will be services at the Church of the First Christian 
Society; a Public Dinner at City Hall; and a Balloon 
Ascension from the Common. 

Exercises at the Church. The exercises at the Church 
will be an Address by His Honor George Howland, Jr., 
Mayor of New Bedford. 

An Address by William W. Crapo, Esq., 

A Poem by James B. Congdon, Esq., 
with appropriate Vocal and Instrumental Music. 

Dinner at City Hall. Plates will be laid in the hall 
for six hundred persons. 

It is expected that His Excellency the Governor of the 
Commonwealth will be present with his military family. 
Other distinguished individuals, many of them from abroad, 
will attend as invited guests, from whom addresses 
appropriate to the occasion and the times may be expected. 

Vocal and Instrumental Music will give diversity to the 
entertainment. 

The Balloon Ascension. The Balloon Ascension will 
take place from the city common, at 5 o'clock, P. M. 

The exercises at the Church will commence at 11 o'clock,, 
A. M. 

The invited guests, the selectmen of Dartmouth, Westport, 
Fairhaven, and Acushnet, the members of the New Bedford 
City Council, with the clerks of the two branches, and the 
town-clerks of the several towns, will assemble at the 
Mayor's room, in City Hall, at 10 o'clock. 

At half after 10 they will proceed to the Church and 
occupy the seats reserved for them. 

The Church will be opened at 10 o'clock for the admission 
of ladies, and gentlemen accompanied by ladies, to seats in 
any part of the building not reserved. 



15 



After the exercises at the Church the gentlemen occupying 
the reserved seats will return iu a body to City Hall. 

The ladies and gentlemen who hold tickets for the dinner, 
will assemble at the Council Chambers in the City Hall, at 1 
o'clock. To avoid confusion the plates will be numbered to 
correspond with the number upon the tickets. 

Tickets for the dinner may be obtained on and after the 
8th instant, at the stores of Henry J. Taylor and Cornelius 
Davenport, where a plan of the tables may be seen. 

Gentlemen holding cards of invitation have no occasion 
to provide tickets for the dinner. 

I am requested by His Honor the Mayor, respectfully to 
desire the citizens of New Bedford to do all that may be 
in their power to render the occasion one of profit and 
enjoyment. His desire is that we may all close our places 
of business and open our hearts and our homes, that the 
celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of tlie 
incorporation of our parent town may be long and pleasantly 

remembered. 

Henry J. Taylor, Marshal. 

Cards of invitation were sent to a number of gentlemen 
resident abroad, and to some who are residents of New 
Bedford, requesting them to be present on the occasion as 
guests of the city. The following is a copy of a note sent 
to the Hon. Stephen Salisbury, President of the American 
Antiquarian Society. 

City of New Bedford, 

September 5th, 1864. 
To Hon. Stephen Salisbury, 

President of the American Antiquarian Society, 

Worcester : 
My friend. The two hundredth anniversary of the incor- 
poration of the Old Town of Dartmouth, will be observed 
in New Bedford on tlie 14th instant by exercises appropri- 
ate to the occasion. 

The gentlemen who act for tlic several municipalities 



16 



uniting in this celebration; are desirous that your society 
should be represented on the occasion. 

Their invitation is hereby respectfully extended to you, 
and you may be assured that your presence will be a source 
of much gratification. 

Should it not be in your power to attend in person, please 
confer a favor upon the committee by designating some 
other gentleman to honor us with his company and occupy 
the same position. I enclose a blank card of invitation, 
which please cause to be filled up as circumstances may 
require. 

The favor of an answer is requested. 
With much respect, 

Geokge Howland, Jr., 

Mayor of New Bedford. 

A note of the same purport was sent to the Hon. Robert 
0. WiNTHROP, President of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society. 

Letters from both these gentlemen will be found, with 
those from other invited guests in their appropriate place. 



17 

OEDEE OF EXEECISES AT THE CHUECH. 
1. 

Music by the New Bedford Brass Band. 

2. 

Singing by the Choir. 

Hymn : 
Written for the occasion by James B. Congdon. 

Eternal One ! with solemn fear, 
We speak thy high and holy name : 

May every heart that name revere ; 
May every tongue Thy praise proclaim. 

The Heaven of Heavens cannot contain 

The Infinite ! th' Unchangeable ! 
Nor can th' archangel's loftiest strain 

The wonders of Thy glory tell. 

Our God ! our Father ! Saviour ! Friend ! 

Thy earthly children seek Thy face : 
To all Thy gracious presence lend, 

To all the blessings of Thy grace. 

Thou wast our fathers' guide and stay, 
Through years of peril and of blood : 

Strong in Thy might they held their way, 
And firm for God and Country stood. 

They rest with Thee — their children here 
In shade and storm their pathway tread : 

Lord ! in the cloud and flame appear, 
And light and hope around us spread. 

3. 

Prayer : 
By Rev. William J. Potter. 



11 



4=. 

Address : 

By His Honor George Howland, Jr., Mayor of New Bedford. 

5. 

Singing by the Choir. 

The Battle Hymn of the Republic: 
Written by Julia Ward Howe. 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord : 
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath 

are stored : 
He has loosed the fatal lightning of His terrible swift sword. 
His truth is marching on. 
Glory! glory! hallelujah! Glory! glory! hallelujah! 
Glory ! glory ! hallelujah ! His truth is marching on. 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps ; 
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and 

damps : 
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps j 
His day is marching on. Glory ! &c. 

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel : 
" As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace 

shall dealj" 
" Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel ;" 
" Since God is marching on." Glory ! &c. 

He has sounded forth that trumpet which shall never call 

retreat ; 
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat : 
Be swift, my soul, to answer Him ! be jubilant, my feet ! 
Our God is marching on. Glory ! &g. 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me ; 
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, 
While God is marching on. Glory ! &c. 



19 

6. 

Address : 
By William W. Crapo. 

7. 
Music by the Band. 

8. 

Poem : 

By James B. Congdon. 

9. 

Music by tlie Band. 

10. 

Benediction : 

By Rev. Tyler C. Moulton. 



PROCEEDINGS 



AT THE 



O H TJ R O H 



AKD AT TIIE 



CITY HALL. 



23 



On the day appointed for the celebration the arrange- 
ments made by the committee were fully carried into eflfcct. 
The weather was delightfully pleasant. At 10 o'clock the 
invited guests assembled in the Aldermen's room, at the 
City Hall, where were also convened the members of the 
City Government; and at half past ten, a procession was 
formed by Henry J. Taylor, Esq., marshal of the day, 
which marched to the First Christian Church, on Purchase 
street, in the following order. 

New Bedford Brass Band. 

Marshal. 

Common Council of New Bedford. 

Clerk of the Common Council. 

Board of Aldermen. 

City Clerk. 

Selectmen of Dartmouth, Westport, Fairhaven, and Acushnet. 

Town Clerks. 

Rhode Island and IMassachusetts Christian Conference. 

Invited Guests. 

Mayor of New Bedford. 

Orator, Poet, and Officiating Clergymen. 

The proceedings at the church were in accordance with 
the order of exercises given above. The addresses by His 
Honor the Mayor and William W. Crapo, and the poem by 
James B. Congdon, will be found in their appropriate places 
in this publication. They were listened to by one of tlie 
largest and most respectable audiences ever collected in the 
city. The church was filled to its utmost capacity; and 
although the exercises occupied more than two hours, no 
evidence of weariness was exhibited on the part of the 
large gathering. 

At the conclusion of the exercises at the church, the 
procession was re-formed and marched to the City Hall ; 
and at two o'clock P. M. a large company of invited guests, 
and others from the city and the sister towns, sat down to 
a collation that had been provided. 



24 



Due attention having been given to the " creature com- 
forts," Mayor Howland called the assembly to order. He 
expressed his pleasure at seeing so many present on the 
occasion, and invited their attention to the sentiments to be 
announced by the toast-master, and the responses which 
were expected. 

C. B. H. Fessenden, Esq., who acted as toast-master, then 
announced the first sentiment. 

" The President of the United States — honest and faithful 
Abraham Lincoln." 

Hon. Thomas D. Eliot, representative from the first 
Congressional District, was called upon to respond to this 
sentiment, which he did in a most earnest and eloquent 
manner. 

The second toast was, 

" The Governor of Massachusetts — sound in head and 
heart; true to the State, careful of its interests, jealous for 
its honor, tender of its citizens, and true to the nation, the 
sovereign and safeguard of the State." 

The Hon. Robert C. Pitman, state senator, made a 
beautiful and impressive response to this sentiment. 

Mr. Fessenden then gave. 

" The Army and Navy — more than sympathy, all honor to 
the brave and gallant soldiers and sailors, the true peace- 
makers, who, by their heroism in suffering and exploit, have 
added to the nation's glory, and through whose noble deeds 
we have assurance of the nation's safety." 

Rev. William J. Potter, late chaplain in the United States 
army, spoke feelingly and forcibly of the deeds of the 
soldiers and sailors in the service of the country. In con- 
cluding his remarks he proposed the following sentiment. 

" The free church, the free school, and the free ballot, we 
would defend and spread throughout the land, and open to 
all the inhabitants thereof." 

The toast-master then read a letter from Hon. Robert C. 
Winthrop, President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 
who had been invited, expressing his inability to be present. 



25 



and requesting Ex-Governor Cliiford to respond for the 
society of which he is a member. 

The toast-master also, in this connection, alluded to the 
fact that in 1740, Dartmouth attempted something like a 
peaceable secession, and read the following extract from the 
ancient records of the town. 

" Stephen West Jr. and Beriah Goddard are chosen agents 
in behalf of this town to apply to the honored court of 
Commissioners for the settling the line between Rhode 
Island and the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, and to 
show forth our desire and absolute right to come under the 
jurisdiction of the Colony of Rhode Island. 

It was put to vote, whether it be the town's mind to come 
under the government of Rhode Island, and it past bij a very 
clear vote." 

Fortunately, added Mr. Fessenden, this early attempt at 
secession failed to be consummated. But when he remem- 
bered that our distinguished townsman, who was called upon 
to respond for the Historical Society of Massachusetts, was 
a native of Rhode Island, had early in lite removed to Old 
Dartmouth, and had served the Commonwealth of his adop- 
tion so acceptably, both as its chief Law Officer and as the 
head of its Government, he thought we might say, that 
although Dartmouth did not go to Rhode Island, the best 
part of Rhode Island came to Dartmouth — and gave as a 
sentiment : 

" Our gain by this failure — one of Massachusetts' ablest 
Attorney Generals, and one of her purest Chief Magistrates." 

To this sentiment Ex-Governor Clifford was called upon 
by the Mayor to respond, and was received with cordial cheers. 

He commenced by saying, that on behalf of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society, of which he believed he was the 
only member residing within the limits of the old town of 
Dartmouth, he desired to express his thanks to the commit- 
tee for their courtesy in asking that the society might be 
represented upon this occasion. It was the oldest organi- 
zation of the kind in this country — and the well-filled 



26 



volumes of its collections and proceedings showed how- 
diligent and eiScient an association it had been in rescuing 
and preserving the valuable materials of history, which, but 
for its labors, would have been lost to the world. It had 
always regarded with great favor these local celebrations, 
furnishing as they do, such important and interesting contri- 
butions of those materials, and it had usually been repre- 
sented at them by a committee of its members. If its 
accomplished President, whose letter had just been read, 
could have been present and listened to the exercises at the 
church this morning, he would have felicitated the society 
upon the valuable contributions to our local history which 
had been made both by the Orator and Poet of the day. 
The development by the' former, in his admirable address, of 
the causes that led to the settlement of Dartmouth, elicited 
from the ancient records, hitherto so little known even to 
the students of our history, and demonstrating that our 
fathers were men who were ready to bear any burdens, or 
submit to any sufferings rather than sacrifice a great principle, 
could not have failed to impress him with a sense of the 
great value of these local investigations. 

To the Poet also he would have felt, as the speaker did, 
a grateful sense of obligation for having added to the 
interesting episodes of our early history the verification of 
the fact that Major Andre, that most pathetic figure in the 
great drama of the Revolution, was an officer in Grey's 
Expedition, and witnessed from the spot on which we were 
assembled, the conflagration of Bedford village by the enemy. 

The speaker also alluded to the justice that had been 
done by the Poet to that most conspicuous of all the Indian 
warriors with whom our Pilgrim Fathers had to contend for 
their existence as a colony — the son of the generous and 
magnanimous Massasoit, without whose faithful services and 
succor they must have perished — whom Washington Irving 
has so truthfully and beautifully described as " the brave 
and unfortunate King Philip ; persecuted while living — slan- 
dered and dishonored when dead." 



27 



The speaker tlien proceeded to respond to the personal 
kindness which was conveyed in the sentiment oflered by 
the Toast-master, and while expressing his grateful thanks 
for the favor with which it had been received by the company, 
remarked, that on an occasion like this, no one of the living 
could justly appropriate to himself, or have assigned to him 
by others any share in the honors of their festival. That 
in listening to the eloquent remarks of his friends, who had 
responded to the regular toasts from the chair, he could not 
forget, however worthy of our highest respect and most 
imreserved commendation were the subject of their eulo- 
giums, that this was an occasion, not for the glorification of 
living Presidents, or Governors, or Generals, but one of 
commemoration of those who, by their services and sacrifices 
in their day and generation, had made Presidents and Gov- 
ernors and Generals possible in ours. 

He then spoke at some length of the toils and sufferings 
of those by whom those sacrifices had been made, the fruits 
of which we were permitted to enjoy. He especially 
described in glowing terms the fidelity to every duty so 
conspicuously displayed by our Pilgrim Mothers, and the 
high-hearted women of the Revolution, whose resplendent 
virtue has reappeared among their descendants in this exi- 
gent hour of our country's agony ; whose labors in behalf of 
the soldier in the field and the sailor on the deep, whose minis- 
trations to the dying martyrs to their country's cause, in tlie 
hospitals and on the field of battle, proved tliat they had de- 
scended from a maternal ancestry, well worthy to be united 
with the fathers in this grateful service of commemoration. 

Governor Clifford closed his address, of which the fore- 
going is only a meagre sketch, amid peals of applause, with 
the following sentiment. 

" Tlie old toivii of Dartmouth — Its founders were among the 
first to form a union to secure religious Uherty for the indi- 
vidual : may their descendants be as steadfast and uncom- 
promising in maintaining the ' Liberty and Union, now and 
forever,' of their common country." 



28 



The next toast was, 

" The Clergy — They owe much to those sturdy men of 
Old Dartmouth, who,' though they refused to pay church 
rates, never failed to support honest and God-fearing minis- 
ters ; and who, in a tolerant and catholic spirit, chose in 
1730 as their religious teachers, Nicholas Howland, a Friend, 
and Philip Taber, a Baptist." 

This called out the Rev. Doct. Babcock of Poughkeepsie, 
formerly of the William Street Baptist Church in this city, 
who pleasantly responded, and closed with the following : 

" The absent sons of Old Dartmouth — Wherever they are, 
they remember their mother with undying affection." 

Mr. Fessenden then read several of the many letters 
which had been received by the committee of arrangements 
in answer to invitations which had been sent to gentlemen 
who could not attend. These with others will be found at 
the conclusion of this account. 

The following lines, written in response to the question, 
" What is there of interesting incident connected with the 
name of Dartmouth?" were read by the toast-master. 

A Dartmouth* ship, to Dartmouth's shoref. 
The bold adventurous Gosnold bore ; 
'Twas Dartmouth's wide, historic strand*. 
Sheltered the storm-tossed Pilgrim Band ; 
Against the wrong of British greed, 
Hear * Dartmouth's Peer for justice plead ; 
A Dartmouth shipt with Dartmouth! crew. 
With Dartmouth'sf name and owner;]: too, 
Had lading of th' historic tea. 
Which found its steeping in the sea — 
fVave-o^ering to Liberty. 

In connection with this, James B. Congdon read an 
Address which he had prepared to the Mayor, Recorder 

* Dartmouth in England, t Dartmouth in Kcw England. J The o-v^Tier was Francis Botch 
of Bedford ill Dartmouth. 



29 



AND Aldermen of the city op Dartmouth, County op 
Devon, England. 

The address was approved by the meeting ; and a vote 
was passed, ordering its engrossment, and directing it to be 
sent, after being signed by the authorities of the several 
municipalities which united in making it, to those to whom 
it is addressed, by the committee of arrangements. The 
address and the vote of the assembly in relation to it will 
be found on a subsequent page. 

Although ample provision had been made for prolonging 
the social and intellectual festivities of the occasion, five 
hours had now been devoted to them, and it was time for 
the parting song. This was admirably sung by several 
gentlemen, the whole company joining in the chorus. 

Song : 
Written for the occasion by William G. Baker, Esq. 

No mournful strains to-day we sing, 

No requiem for the Past, 
As here, fresh laurel wreaths we bring, 

On victor's heads to cast. 
Though twice one hundred years arc o'er, 

They live who lived so well, 
And by Acushnet's peaceful shore 
In honor yet they dwell. 

Then let the swelling chorus ring 
For days of " auld lang sync." 
Till echoes answer, as we sing 
The brave of "auld lang syne." 

The tranquil river onward flows, 

And still rolls in the sea. 
While autumn's sun serenely glows 

On laden vine and tree. 
But where are they whose names we love. 

Whose treasured deeds we boast ? 



30 



Not where the crumbling stones above, 
Record them with the lost. 

Then let the swelling chorus ring, &c. 

They live in every glorious word 

Defending freedom's cause, 
They strike, where falls the patriot's sword 

For Union and the laws. 
And when the brave host marching goes 

To battle for the right, 
Their footsteps mark the spot, where foes 

Fall thickest in the fight. 

Then let the swelling chorus ring, &c. 

The vine shall in the dust decay. 

And withered fall the tree ; 
Old Time shall hew these shores away, 
And trample down the sea : 
. But Fame shall keep their record bright, 
Who builded for us here, 
As long as right shall still be right 
And liberty be dear. 

Then let the swelling chorus ring 
For days of " auld lang syne," 
Till echoes answer, as we sing 
The brave of " auld lang syne." 

Thus was brought to a close the celebration of the two 
hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of 
Dartmouth. It was an interesting and delightful occasion. 
Of the large number of the people of this city and the 
sister communities who participated in it, not one appeared 
to be disappointed. It was a day of elevated enjoyment 
and profitable recreation ; and that a record of it may be 
preserved and a portion of the pleasure it imparted may be 
participated in by those who were not present, this account 
of its proceedings has been prepared and published. 



31 



It belongs to the history of our Centennial to state, that 
the music both at the church and at the hall was of an 
unusually high character. Mrs. Howe's "Battle Hymn of 
the Republic " was sung in a manner that gave it access to the 
breasts of the immense audience, which was fully evidenced 
by the heartiness with which they joined in the magnificent 
chorus. To Mr. Baeton Ricketson, Jr., who kindly volun- 
teered to take charge of the singing, the public are greatly 
indebted for the effective manner in which this part of the 
exercises was performed. It is hardly necessary to say that 
the New Bedford Brass Band performed, in an admirable 
manner, the patriotic airs they had selected for the occasion. 

The record would be incomplete, did it fail to notice the 
promptness and good order with which the arrangements 
were carried into eifcct by the marshal of the day, Henry 
,J. Taylor, Esq., and his efficient corps of assistants, Messrs. 
Andrew G. Pierce, Lemuel M. Kollock, Cornelius Daven- 
port, John W. Macomber, William C. Taber, Jr., and 
Charles H. Gifford. 



THE FHOTOG^Pt^Ai-FHS 



EARLY DARTMOUTH RECORDS. 



35 



James B. Congdon, who has been for a long time at work 
upon the official records of Dartmouth, arranging the scat- 
tering fragments, and restoring many imperfect and fast 
decaying pages, exhibited photographs of the two oldest 
existing pages of these records. They are the work of the 
Brothers Bierstadt, and convey a perfect idea of the ancient, 
dim and defaced originals. Copies are, we understand, to 
be presented to each of the municipalities whose connection 
with the old records renders these pictures of the first 
recorded proceedings of the town interesting and valuable. 
It is understood that Mr. Congdon will continue his labors 
upon these records until they are as nearly restored as their 
dilapidated condition will admit. 

The following is a transcript of the first page of the 
records of which a photograph copy has been taken as 
before stated. 

" At a town meeting the 22 : of May in the year: 1674. 
John Cook was chosen debity arther hathaway grandiury- 
man William earl Constable John Russell iams Shaw 
and William Palmer selectmen daniel willcoks peleg 
Shearman and Samuel Cudbard survaers and James Shaw 
Clark. 

At a town meetinge y° 22 of Jouly 1674 it is ordered that 
all our town meetings doe beginne at ten of y*^ clocke and 
to continue untill y*^ moderator doly releace the town not 
exceeding four of y^ clocke. 

It is all so ordered that all such parsons as doe necklectt 
to a yeer all the town meetings shall for fitt to the town 1 
shilling and six pence a pece and for coming to meeting to 
Icatt three pence an hour. 

It is all so ordered that the town clarke shall gather up 
all a for said finnes and shall have y*^ on hallfe of them for 
his pains and in ceace any doe refuse to pay them returuc 
the neame to y*^ towne. 

It is ordered by the towne by vote that there shall be no 
alteration in the ruUe of. for this following year. 



36 



Henry Tucker Joseph Tripp and Jearaes Shaw are chosen 
reatters for this following yeer. 

At a town meeting in the 17 of May 1675 John Cook 
is chosen deputy for this following year. John Russell is 
chosen constable for this following year. Joseph Allinne is 
chosen Grandiuryman for this following year William Earlle 
Acha Howland Junior Thomas briggs are suruires for this 
following year. 

Whereas there is complaint of the badness 

of fences the town hereby chosen thomas 

teabor and Jeames Shaw for Acushenett and John Smith 
and pelige Shearman for ponegansett and pelige tripp and 

William Wood for acocksett to vew mens fences and 

to them for a fence or condemn 

and to fine and bad to mend them." 



A-D D RE S S 



TO THE PEOPLE OF 



DARTMOUTH, ENGLAND. 



ADDRESS. 

To the Mayor, Recorder and Aldermen of the City of Dart- 
mouth, County of Devon, England : 

Gentlemen, On this day of our solemn festivity, while 
we are assembled to commemorate the incorporation, two 
hundred years ago, of the town called by a name which your 
historic city has borne for nearly a thousand, we, the people 
of the city of New Bedford, and of the towns of Dartmouth, 
Westport, Fairhaven and Acushnet, municipalities into which 
the territory of the mother town has been separated, would 
to you, and through you to the inhabitants you represent, 
send a greeting of remembrance and regard. 

Forcibly and pleasantly have we at this time been 
reminded of the many interesting circumstances which con- 
nect your ancient borough with the town whose corporate 
birth-day we now commemorate. We call to mind the fact, 
that it was from Dartmouth, and in a Dartmouth ship, 
bearing a name significant of that feeling of Concord which 
will we trust forever characterize the intercourse between 
the nations to which we respectively belong, that Bartholo- 
mew Gosnold in 1602 put forth upon his voyage to America, 
landed upon our shores, and upon an island often called by 
his name, in sight from the spot upon which we are now 
assembled, erected the first white man's dwelling upon the 
soil of New England. 

Deeper still have been our recollective associations as we 
have remembered, that it was in your noble harbor, and in 
the nobler hearts and homes of the then inhabitants of your 
city, that our Pilgrim Fathers found a shelter, when the 
perils of the storm drove them from their course across the 
ocean to found an empire in the New World. It was the 



40 



memory of that providential preservation, and of the hospi- 
tality extended to them in that hour of despondency and 
weakness, that prompted them, when they went forth from 
Plymouth Rock to subdue the forest and extend the borders 
of their Commonwealth, to bestow upon this portion of 
their goodly heritage the name of that city by the Mouth of 
the Dart, from which they had taken their last departure 
for their new home amid the wilds of America. 

The occasion demanded of those who had been selected 
to address us a brief recital of that conflict which led to the 
political separation of the United States of America from 
the land our people have ever loved to call the Mother 
Country. 

And while we have been moved and saddened by the 
recital, we have with deep and grateful feelings remembered, 
that it was William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary 
of the Colonies under George 3d, and who derived his title 
from your ancient city, who gave the force of his character 
and commanding talents in opposition to the Grenville 
Administration, for conciliation and peace. For the memory 
of this friend of Franklin, the friend of justice, the friend 
of peace, this high-minded Christian gentleman and Peer of 
England, we shall ever cherish the sentiments of profound 
respect. 

Such are some of the links of that Golden Chain of 
associations which at this moment stretches across the 
ocean, and binds together the city whose noble harbor 
sheltered the crusading fleet of the Lion-Hearted Richard, 
with the family of communities which are resting near the 
waters of Gosnold's Hope. We would add, as a circum- 
stance calculated to strengthen the force of the historic 
reminiscences to which we have alluded, that we, too, are to 
a great extent a family of fishermen. At a period not 
remote, a whaling fleet of nearly four hundred ships belong- 
ing to the communities we represent, manned by more than 
ten thousand seamen, was afloat upon the ocean. 

We would assure you, gentlemen, that in sending you this 



41 



grcetiug, which finds its justification in, and depends for its 
interest upon, the incidents and circumstances we have 
recited, we have a purpose deeper than the extension of a 
compliment, or the indulgence of pleasant and interesting 
associations. We wish not to withhold the expression of the 
fact, that in the civil strife which is now raging in our land, 
its loyal people would fain have extended to them that 
moral encouragement and support that attends upon the 
favorable testimony of enlightened Englishmen. They feel 
that they are doing battle for principles which they have 
derived from their Saxon ancestry, and dear to the heart of 
every Briton. 

Allow us, therefore, to express the hope, that the reception 
of our earnest and affectionate greeting will give such a 
direction to your feelings and lead to such an examination 
of the questions at issue between us and our infatuated 
Southern fellow-countrymen, as shall result in your giving 
the weight of your enlightened minds and the testimony of 
your Christian character to the cause of universal freedom. 
We address you amidst the smoke and the roar of the 
conflict ; but we hope and believe that the end is near — and 
when peace shall be restored and the flag of our country 
shall again wave over an undivided soil and a united people, 
we feel, assured that such will then be our condition, that 
closer than it has ever been before will be the union between 
us and our Mother Country. 

New Bedford, Sept. 14, 1864. 

The following is a copy of the vote passed in connection 
with the foregoing address, by the company at the City 
Hall. 

Voted, That the address to the Corporate Authorities 
and the people of the ancient city of Dartmouth, in the 
county of Devon, in England, which has now been read, be 
adopted — that it be properly engrossed* — that it be signed 

♦ The copy of tliis address whicli is to be sent across the Atlantic, has been prepared by 
Cicorge B. Hathaway of this city. It is a beautiful piece of work, and will add to the high 
reputation which Mr. Hathaway has long sustained for excellence as a chirogi-apher. 



42 



on behalf of the people of Dartmouth, New Bedford, West- 
port, Fairhaven and Acushnet by their respective corporate 
authorities, and authenticated by the seals of the several 
municipalities — and that, when thus prepared, it be for- 
warded to those for whom it is intended by the committee 
of arrangements, in such a manner as they shall think 
proper. 



LETTERS 



INVITED GUESTS. 



45 



Letters declining the invitations of the committee of 
arrangements were received from His Excellency Governor 
Andrew, Hon. Henry H. Crapo of Michigan, Rev. Orville 
Dewey, Hon. Alexander H. Bullock, Hon. J. H. W. Page, 
Martin L. Eldridge, Esq., Thomas Almy, Esq., Hon. Robert 
C. Winthrop, President Massachusetts Historical Society, 
Rev. Charles Ray Palmer, Hon. Lemuel Williams, Rev. W. 
S. Studley, Daniel Ricketson, Esq., Hon. Stephen Salisbury, 
President of the American Antiquarian Society, and others. 

Want of space restricts the publication to the communi- 
cations received from the gentlemen whoso names we have 
given. 

From His Excellency John A. Andrew. 

Boston, September 10, 18G4. 
Hon. George Howland, Jr., 

Mayor, &c., New Bedford, Mass : 

My Dear Sir, I sincerely regret that a visit to Washing- 
ton, which is important to be made immediately, will prevent 
my enjoying the pleasure I had anticipated in attending the 
centennial celebration at New Bedford on the 14th instant. 
The occasion is one of intrinsic interest; and I am sure 
that the gentlemen who will assist in its illustration will not 
fail to render it an honorable and pleasant memorial of 
your beautiful and prosperous city. I trust that I may be 
able partially to compensate myself for the loss I shall 
suffer, both of instruction and recreation, in being obliged 
to decline your friendly and valued invitation, not only by 
reading the addresses and proceedings which will be doubt- 
less in print hereafter, but also by finding some other early 
opportunity of enjoying your hospitality. 

I am, with much regard, your friend and servant. 

John A. Andrew. 



46 



From Hon. Henry H. Crapo. 

Flint, Mich., August 29, 1864. 
Hon. George Howland, Jr., 

Mayor of the City of New Bedford, Mass. : 

My Dear Sir, I am in receipt of your esteemed favor 
of the 24th inst., inclosing the invitation of yourself and 
the several chairmen of the Boards of Selectmen for the 
towns of Dartmouth, Westport, Fairhaven and Acushnct, to 
be present, on the 14th proximo, at the " celebration of the 
two hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the town 
of Dartmouth." 

I am indeed gratified, not only by the invitation itself, 
but more especially by ijour friendly and flattering letter 
inclosing it; and be assured that nothing short of an 
imperious necessity would deprive me of the exquisite 
pleasure I should most certainly enjoy by being present on 
that occasion, and taking by the hand my old and well 
remembered friends, and exchanging once more with them 
those cordial and heartfelt greetings so expressive of mutual 
friendship and regard. 

But I regret to say, that notwithstanding my most earnest 
desire to be present, circumstances are such that I am 
compelled to deny myself the pleasure. - 

The occasion will undoubtedly be a source of great enjoy- 
ment to all who are permitted to be present; whilst to 
those who are not it will be a prolific source of reflection, 
consequent upon a review of the past, and of the various 
changes incident to human life, which the occasion can hardly 
fail to call up. 

In regard to myself, as I peruse your kind and friendly 
letter, my mind is at once forcibly and irresistibly carried 
back through all the varied scenes and amid all the numerous 
associations of a period of nearly fifty years of vivid recol- 
lection; and as these pass in review before me, I again 
behold, at Idast in imagination, the spot where I was born 
in that, even noiu, apparently new and unclaimed and uncul- 



47 



tivated regioD in the north part of the present town of 
Dartmouth — and further on, in another portion of her 
territory, I see the old and worn out fields, with their hard, 
sterile and rocky soil, in which my boyhood and youth were 
spent in a round of unceasing toil ; — whilst in the foreground 
of the picture appears in vivid colors all the scenes and 
incidents and associations consequent upon a busy life, in 
the prime of manhood — surrounded by warm and true and 
devoted friends — for a period of nearly tUirtii years in your 
own beautiful city. 

How forcibly your invitation and your kind letter recall 
to my mind all the important events of my whole life, until 
Providence, by some mysterious influence, directed my steps 
to Michigan, the State of my adoption — my present home — 
and where I trust my future days will be spent. 

But although now an acknowledged citizen of Michigan, 
a State still in its infancy, yet destined ere long to stand at 
the head of the States of this Union in prosperity, in wealth, 
and in refinement, as well as in every material element of 
greatness and power — whose area is nearly as large as that 
of all New England, and whose population in the brief space 
of a few years has nearly reached that of the good old State 
of Massachusetts — whose soil is rich and productive — 
whose climate is healthy — whose society is good — and 
whose people are intelligent, enterprising and industrious — 
and whose resources, the development of which has scarcely 
begun, in almost every variety of the richest and most useful 
mineral substances, as well as in vast forests of choice tim- 
ber, and in extensive fisheries — are of incalculable value; — 
and although in some at least of these particulars the com- 
parison may be to the disadvantage of our native town, 
whose birth you commemorate, yet after all, for one of her 
sons, I must bear unqualified testimony that what she may 
lack in some things she amply makes up in others. And 
although I am well pleased with and proud of the home of 
my adoption, yet I still appreciate and love, and will ever 
strive to honor, as she deserves, my native home. 



48 



And to her sons and daughters who may meet with you 
on this occasion I would say, that I am proud of " Old 
Dartmouth," the place of my birth, and the home of my 
childhood, my youth, and my manhood for so many years ; 
and that the recollection of all her dealings towards me, 
one of her truant sons, are ever sweet and grateful, for they 
were infinitely above my deserts. 

Let me also say to those who still abide by the old " roof- 
tree," and who still cling to " Fader Land," and let me ask 
those who like me have strayed from the fold, to unite in 
the sentiment, that it shall ever be our study, our constant 
and unalterable purpose, wherever we may be in the future, 
in whatever position the calls of duty may place us, or under 
whatever circumstances our lives may be cast, that we will 
remain true to our native land, that we will foster and 
cherish every right principle of our fathers, that we will 
hold fast to the lessons, and constantly maintain the habits 
of industry, prudence, and virtue, which we received upon 
her rugged soil, and that we will ever honor that dear old 
home, which has given us, by her efficient training, a will to 
overcome difficulties and to surmount obstacles, and an 
ambition for right progress and for honorable advancement, 
that is not excelled by the sons of any other soil. 

If we do this, I am sure that whether still denizens of 
the " Dear Old Home," or wanderers in more highly favored 
lands, we shall have no just cause to regret, but shall 
remember with an honest pride, that the " Old Dartmouth " 
of 1664 was the place of our birth; nor will that home 
have occasion to regret that we are her sons, or blush to 
acknowledge us as her children. 

You have my dear sir, been pleased to allude, in very 
friendly and flattering terras, to the circumstance, that my 
son is the chosen orator of the day. I am indeed proud to 
learn that he is deemed worthy, on such an occasion, of 
occupying so prominent a position ; and I may perhaps be 
pardoned this expression of my gratification. 

With sentiments of the highest esteem and regard to 



49 



yourself personally, and to your associates, and with the 
most friendly and cordial greetings to all who may be 
present on the occasion, 

I remain, very truly, yourS; &c. 

Henry H. Crapo. 

From Rev. O^ville Dewey. 

Sheffield, Sept. 8th, 1864. 
To the Mayor of New Bedford, and his Associates : 

Gentlemen, I have received your invitation to the com- 
ing two hundredth anniversary. Circumstances make it 
inconvenient for me to take the journey at the present time ; 
but I thank you for remembering me on this occasion, and 
thus recognizing my claim to belong to New Bedford. I 
belong to it, though not by birth, yet by a residence there, 
during the first ten years of my professional life. Thirty 
years have passed since; and time, I must suppose, has 
weakened any interest felt in me, more than it has mine, in 
the good old town — so many of whose dwellings and very 
streets are dear to my recollection. 

Thirty years is the life-time of a generation ; and more 
than six of those periods have passed since the first settle- 
ments were made at Buzzard's Bay. Six generations, now 
swelling, I suppose, to 30 or 40,000 people — what worlds, 
if earnest and anxious, of sad and joyous life, since the 
first settlers came ! Pleasant place they came to ; I do not 
wonder that they were attracted to them — the banks of the 
Acushnct; the view-commanding slopes of New Bedford; 
the lovely Point, skirted now, by a magnificent Promenade 
Road; and the quiet fields and shores of Padanaram — 
pleasant to my remembrance, like the scenes of the old 
Bible story — like "the memory of joys that are past, 
pleasing and mournful to the soul." 

The commemoration of epochs is the recognition of a 
history. And New Bedford has a history ; in its arduous 



50 



and prosperous business ; in its growing wealth ; in its pub- 
lic schools ; in its flourishing Lyceum,* and in its goodly 
tabernacles of worship; in the strong moral tone, and, as 
I well believe, in these perilous times, the Devoted Loyalty 
of its people. 

I send to it, on its honored two hundredth anniversary, 
my respectful and affectionate greeting. 

Orville Dewey. 



From Hon. Alexander H. Bullock. 

Worcester, Sept. 4, 1864. 

My Dear Sir, I thank you for the invitation to attend 
the two hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of 
Dartmouth, and only regret that my engagements on the 
14th instant will prevent my attendance. 

There is peculiar signification in these municipal celebra- 
tions at a time like the present. Massachusetts owes what 
she is and what she has accomplished, to her municipal 
individualities. Their culture, their patience and trials, 
their patriotism and sacrifices, have made up her sovereign 
power, and crowned her with glory. In them she learned 
Liberty. From. them she derived those lessons of govern- 
ernment, of economy, of virtue, which she has promulgated 
over this country and over the globe. These are the 
nurseries of her principles, her faith, her all. 

Looking back over a period of two centuries, how the 
inhabitants of the ancient town, now become five, may con- 
gratulate themselves that the great principles of Liberty 
and Government, now in the peril of war, have at all times 
and under all difficulties, had a» shrine there ! I believe, 
also, that after such a survey and review, your fellow-citizens 
will arouse with fresh stimulation to the manly defence of 
those blessings which their ancestors achieved by their toil, 

* Doct. Dewey wrote tlie notice for publication that called tlie first meeting in relation to 
tlic Lyceum. 



51 



their treasure, and their blood, and which are now placed 
in hazard by an atrocious rebellion. 

May the lesson of Liberty be treasured and transmitted ! 

Yours most truly, 

Alexander H. Bullock. 

Ilis Honor George Howland, Jr., and others. 



From Hon. J. H. W. Page. 

Boston, Sept. 3d, 1864. 
To the Mayor of Neiv Bedford, and his Associates : 

My Dear Sir, I have received yours, enclosing invitation 
to attend the " two hundredth anniversary of the incorpora- 
tion of the town of Dartmouth," on Wednesday, Sept. 14. 

I need not tell you how much my heart is interested in 
that matter. I love New Bedford, although fate has for 
some ■ years placed me elsewhere. If I can ever do her 
good, I shall do it with all my heart. 

I expect to leave for Pennsylvania Monday morning, and 
shall not probably return before the 14th. If I should, I 
will be with you. 

If I am not there, please take my" kindest sympathies and 
best wishes with you all. 

Ever gratefully and truly yours, 

J. PI. W. Page. 



Prom Martin L. Eldridge, Esq., of Aoushnet, Teacher in 
the State Nautical School. 

Dear Sirs, Your kind invitation to be present at " the 
two hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the town 
of Dartmouth," was duly received. I fear my engagements 
are such as to deprive me of the happiness of being with 
you on that interesting occasion. 



52 



Dartmouth; in point of time the twelfth town in the Colony 
of Plymouth, was settled in a dark and stormy period. In 
England, the transient joy of an afflicted people at the 
restoration of a Stuart king was giving way under the 
encroachments of new tyrannies, to well-grounded fears and 
gloomy discontent. The unsettled policy of the parent 
country towards its infant colonies was now assuming a 
shape which filled the colonists with the greatest apprehen- 
sions and misgiving. A fleet of ships of war was crossing 
the Atlantic, bearing an obnoxious commission and armed 
soldiery to the shores of New England; and the deepest 
solicitude was felt for the fate of the colonies. 

Bnt the determined men of those days turn not from their 
settled purpose. They erect new townships, they subdue 
the wilderness, and, unmindful of hardships, perils, or dis- 
couragements, build as for a bright future. 

What a sublime example of faith in God and a good 
cause ! 

Let us hope that the lessons taught by the retrospect of 
two centuries may increase our veneration for those remark- 
able men who laid the political foundations, not of a munici- 
pality merely, but of the Republic ; who amid perils we can 
never justly estimate, with unexampled fortitude, battled in 
those early days for human freedom. 

Let it not be forgotten that it was from the Colony of 
Plymouth that the first suggestion of Union came ; and in 
coming time, whatever communities of men may forsake the 
faith and doctrines of her Fathers, on the soil of the Old 
Colony let us hope a people may be found whose devotion 
to " Liberty and Union " shall be forever unconquered and 
unconquerable. 

Very truly yours, 

Martin L. Bldridge. 

To George Howland, Jr., and others. 



53 



Prom Thomas Almy, Esq. 

"QuANSETT," Sept. 13th, 1864. 

Dear Sirs, I am very grateful, as one of the inhabitants 
of tlic ancient town of Dartmouth, for the generous hospi- 
tality tendered us by the citizens of New Bedford. 

Having nearly reached my ninetieth year, I fear that the 
undertaking and excitement would be too much for me; 
otherwise it would afford me great pleasure to be present 
at so agreeable a re-union. 

I trust that this festival will be the means of strengthen- 
ing the bonds of sympathy and good-fellowship for future 
generations. 

I am, very truly, yours, 

Thomas Almy. 

[A. B. Almy, Scribe.] 
Messrs. George Howland, Jr., Mayor, and others. 



From Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, President Massachusetts 
Historical Society. 

Boston, 10th Sept. 1864. 
Hon. George Howland, Jr., 

Mayor of New Bedford : 

My Dear Sir, I have the honor to acknowledge your 
obliging communication, inviting me to represent the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society at the " Old Dartmouth " festival 
on the 14th instant. 

I regret extremely that previous engagements for that 
day will prevent my being with you. It would have given 
me great pleasure to unite in commemorating the two hun- 
dredth anniversary of the incorporation of a town, which, 
in addition to its own bright record of usefulness and honor, 
is able to exhibit, as one of its numerous offspring, the noble 
city over which you are privileged to preside. 



54 



I offer you the congratulations of the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society on the occasion of so memorable an anni- 
versary. It carries us back to a period when that old 
Mother Country, of which Plymouth and Massachusetts 
were but humble colonies, was rejoicing in the restoration 
of peace and prosperity after a long and bloody civil war. 
Let us hope that our own day of Restoration is not far 
distant; and that Peace and Union and Constitutional 
Liberty may soon be welcomed again throughout the length 
and breadth of our beloved land. 

I will endeavor, agreeably to your request, to make 
arrangements for the representation of our Society at your 
festival by some other one of our officers or members. But 
if no other should appear, your valued fellow-citizen. Gov- 
ernor Clifford, is one of our number, and we should gladly 
leave it to him to speak for us on an occasion in which he 
cannot but feel the deepest interest. 
I am, respectfully and truly. 

Your obliged and obedient servant, 

Robert C. Winthrop. 



Prom Rev. Charles Ray Palmer. 

Salem, 12 th Sept. 1864. 

[After mentioning that illness would prevent him from 
being present at the festival, Mr. Palmer says :] 

I have a great interest in Old Dartmouth, and a high 
appreciation of the usefulness, from many points of view, of 
such a celebration as is proposed. It will quicken those local 
attachments which seem to be part of, if not essential to, 
true patriotism. It will have a great value to the histori- 
ographer. It will collect and secure the permanent preser- 
vation of much traditional information, that soon would be 
forgotten. It will also be an interesting occasion for the 
interchanging and the cultivation of those friendly affections 
that refine and adorn our social life. 



55 



My interest in Old Dartmouth is owing to the connection 
with its early history of William Palmer, from whom I am 
a descendant of the seventh generation. He was born in 
Plymouth, June 27th, 16G4. His father and grandfather, 
(both '• Williams,") were among the " Old Comers," having 
landed in the Fortune at Plymouth, Nov. 9, 1621. William 
Palmer, Jr., was, at the date of his landing, about eight 
years old. He died in Plymouth in 1635 or 1636, leaving 
a wife and two children. William of Dartmouth, his son, 
married first a daughter of Robert Paddock, of Plymouth, 
who soon died ; second, Susannah Hathaway, who survived 
him. He died in 1679, having been constable, surveyor, and 
selectman. He received other marks of the respect of his 
fellow-citizens. His older sons (two) removed to Little 
Compton in 1684. The remainder of his family continued 
in Dartmouth. Mrs. Philip Dunham (Ruth Palmer) of Dart- 
mouth, is a descendant of the fifth generation. The late 
Richard A. Palmer, of New Bedford, was of the sixth. 
Very respectfully yours, 

Charles Ray Palmer. 
His Honor George Howland, Jr., and others, committee. 



From Hon. Lemuel Williams. 

Worcester, Sept, 12 th, 1864. 

Gentlemen, I received your invitation to attend the 
Centennial Celebration of the two hundredth anniversary 
of the incorporation of the town of Dartmouth, and should 
have gladly compli-ed with it, if my health would have 
permitted. 

Not being able to attend in person, I commenced a sketch 
of my knowledge of many interesting incidents in the history 
of that ancient town, my reminiscences of what have been 
told me by my father and other aged persons, extending 
back more than one hundred and fifty years, but ill health 



56 



has prevented my completing it, which I regret, as many of 
these incidents remain only in my recollection. 
With many thanks for your kind invitation, 

T am respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Lemuel Williams. 
Messrs. George Howland, Jr., and others. 

Committee of two hundredth anniversary. 

From Rev. W. S. Studley. 

Boston, Sept. 12, 1864. 

Dear Sirs, I thank you heartily for your invitation to 
the Dartmouth " Centennial." As a former resident of New 
Bedford — one of her territorial progeny — it would afford 
me real pleasure to be present with my adopted grand- 
mother's household to celebrate her two hundredth birthday ; 
but my other duties, I fear, will prevent. Through you, I 
herewith extend to the whole family my best wishes for a 
happy re-union. I have little skill at " sentiment," but here 
is one honest wish. 

Dartmouth, the aged matron — mother of cities — in time 
to come, as now. may her children be her proudest jewels. 

Yours, truly, 

W. S. Studley. 
Messrs. George Howland, Jr., and others. 

From Daniel Ricketson, Esq. 

Brooklawn, 10th Sept. 1864. 

Friends and Fellow-Citizens, While I yield to my 
disinclination to be present at public festivities, I can most 
heartily unite with you in the commemoration of the first 
settlement of the old township of Dartmouth, within whose 
limits stands our beloved city. 

As a native of New Bedford, and in a line of six genera- 
tions from the first settler of my family name, who was also 



57 



one of the original proprietors of the township in the "cight- 
huudred-acre division," I need not assure you how much I 
am interested in the welfare and success of the several 
members of the ancient township, comprising the present 
towns of Dartmouth, Westport, New Bedford, Fairhaven, 
and Acushnet. 

The early settlers of Dartmouth, as is known to many of 
you, were mostly Friends, and to their industry, as well as 
to their moral and religious character, we owe much of the 
prosperity of our place; not only in the cultivation of the 
soil, whereby they left a goodly heritage to their posterity, 
but in the more venturesome employment upon the ocean. 

" The father of the whale fishery," as he has sometimes 
been called, though not himself a sailor, was Joseph Russell, 
a Friend, whose house stood within the memory of many of 
us, on County street, near the head of William. 

He was an extensive land-holder whose domain comprised 
several hundred acres, now in the most busy and prosperous 
part of our city. His cart-way to the shore was on Union 
street, known prior to the Revolution as King street, and 
then as the Main street of our boyhood. 

It was not however, until the removal from Nantucket of 
those eminent merchants, William Rotch, Sen'r, and William 
Rotch, Jr., and Samuel Rodman, Sen'r, that New Bedford 
became known much abroad as a commercial place. Others 
of our own people soon became engaged in business, and 
before the last war with the Mother Country, our place had 
become known to most of the commercial emporiums of 
Europe, whither our vessels had carried cargoes of oil, 
bringing return cargoes of the products of other lands, 
many of them articles of manufacture for household and 
agricultural use. 

Although 1 have not personally taken a prominent part 
in the affairs of our city, none the less have I felt interested 
in her welfare ; and while much is to be said in her praise, 
a word of counsel and caution may not be out of place. 
The looker-on at a play may oftentimes better see and 



58 



understand it than they who take parts therein : so often 
while observing the state of our affairs in the several fields 
of public interest, whether civil, commercial or religious, I 
have regretted the apparent decay of that ancient good faith 
and integrity which so marked the founders of our city, and 
in lieu thereof, that struggle for wealth irrespective of the 
rights of others. 

The society of New Bedford from thirty to fifty years 
ago, would by no means lose in the comparison with that of 
the present. It could show many highly cultivated minds, 
of both sexes, and few houses of the better class but had 
their library, though small, of the choicest literature of the 
English language, while a generous and hospitable spirit 
almost universally prevailed. 

Better days are, I trust, still in store for us, when the 
fierce spirit of war shall be quelled and the smiling spirit 
of peace shall return once more to our bleeding and sorrow- 
stricken people, which will undoubtedly be best secured by a 
close attention to those higher and more sacred interests of 
our moral and religious natures. 

Thanking you for your kind invitation, and with my best 
wishes for the success of the celebration, 

I remain your friend and fellow-citizen, 

Daniel Ricketson. 
Hon. George Howland, Jr., Mayor, 

and the other members of the committee. 

Prom Hon. Stephen Salisbury, President of the American 
Antiquarian Society. 

Hall of the American Antiquarian Society, 

Worcester, Sept. 13, 18G4. 
Hon. George Howland, Jr., 

Mayor of the city of New Bedford : 

My Dear Sir, Returning home yesterday afternoon from 
an excursion of a week, I find your respected letter of 5th 
instant, which invites the American Antiquarian Society to 



59 



the honor and satisfaction of participating in the celebration 
of the two hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of 
tlie good old town of Dartmouth, which will take place 
to-morrow. I present the thanks of the American Antiqua- 
rian Society for this distinguished hospitality, and I thank 
you for the personal compliment of the request, that I 
should represent the Society. 

As I have an official engagement that must detain me 
from the enjoyment which you oiFer, I have attempted to 
exercise the privilege you offer to me, in selecting some 
other member to go as a delegate of our society, and at so 
short notice I have not been successful, to my great regret. 

This society has the deepest interest in the combined 
efforts of the prosperous dwellers within the limits of that 
venerable town, to honor the virtues of the Fathers and to 
open the sources of history, which may show whence the 
life-blood and strength of that wealthy and intelligent 
population was derived. 

Will you permit me to offer the sentiment written below 
and to assure you 

Of my high and grateful respect ? 

Stephen Salisbury, 
President American Antiquarian Society. 

" Old Dartmouth, the comely mother of more beautiful 
children, whose prosperity has a diverse origin. ' The depth 
says it is wholly in me,' for their line has gone out through 
all the earth, and their enterprise encompasseth the land 
and the sea." 



ADDRESS 



OF 



HIS HONOR GEORGE HOWLAND, JR., 



MAYOR OF NEW BEDFORD. 



ADDRESS. 



My friends and fellow-citizens of Old Dartmouth : 

* 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Wc arc convened this day 
on an occasion of no ordinary interest. We are met 
to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of the 
incorporation of the town of Dartmouth in the year 
1664. We find in the records of the Plymouth Colony 
for the year the following : 

" 1664, June. — Att this Court, all that tracte of land 
comonly called and knowne by the name of Acushena, 
Ponagansett and Coaksett, is allowed by the Court to 
bee a townshipe, and the inhabitants thereof have lib- 
ertie to make such orders as may conduce to theire 
comon good in town consernments ; and that the said 
towne bee henceforth called and knowne by the name 
of Dartmouth." 

The territory within the limits described in that 
record, includes the present towns of Dartmouth, West- 
port, Fairhaven, and Acushnet, and the city of New 
Bedford, and was at that time probably an almost un- 
broken wilderness ; how different now ! Where to-day 
we find the bustle and din of business, hear the hum 
of the spindle and the shriek of the locomotive, and see 
the gallant ships entering our harbors freighted with 
the rich products of other and far remote waters, then, 



64 



with the exception of an occasional settler engaged in 
clearing up a portion of the wilderness and reducing 
it to his necessities, or the swiftly gliding canoe of the 
Indian rippling the placid waters of the streams, all or 
nearly all partook of the silence of nature. 

But leaving the remote past to abler hands, let us 
come down to a more recent period ; there are those 
present whose recollections take them back to a very 
different condition of things from what we now see. 
Even I, at my comparatively early period of life, recol- 
lect when New Bedford contained only about three thou- 
sand inhabitants ; the details of a painting, made some 
twenty-five years since by one of our native artists, rep- 
resenting the "Old Four Corners," are all familiar to mo; 
many a time have I accompanied my respected father 
to the shed market there represented ; the old store 
on one of the corners, then and now known as the 
" Four Corners," with the upper half of the window 
shutter propped up ■ on a stick, and nearly all the other 
objects handed down to us of the present day by this 
picture, I recollect as though they were still extant, 
not forgetting some of the more prominent persons so 
faithfully represented, nor yet the little old No. 1 fire 
engine, nor the old chaise with the small round seat in 
front, upon which sat old " Tony," when he drove his 
excellent master, the venerable William Rotch, Sen., 
through the streets. I have heard my maternal grand- 
mother relate, that when the house which stood upon 
the north-west corner of Union and First streets, on a 
portion of the site now occupied by Thornton Block, 
was raised, she sat at the window of her house on 
Water street, between School and Walnut streets, and 



65 



looking through the forest witnessed the operation. In 
that house, many years after I was born. I have been 
told by an uncle of mine, that when he was a boy, 
and went with other boys after berries, if they thought 
to go so far from home as where I now live, on Sixth 
street, they considered it necessary to take their dinners 
with them. These, and many other incidents that might 
be related, show the changes that have taken place in 
a few years. 

I have also very pleasant recollections of many of 
the old people of forty or more years ago. Of the 
venerable William Eotch, Sen., before alluded to, wlio 
lived in what is now the "Mansion House," wlio on one 
occasion, when I was quite a boy, placing his hand upon 
my head, said to me, "Ah George, I have worn out, 
I have not rusted out." Of John Howland, my honored 
grandfather, who was acknowledged by all to have been 
a strong-minded man, a useful man too, and one who 
served his generation faithfully, who, once on the even- 
ing after a " town meeting " put to me this question : 
" George, been to town meeting to-day ?" I replied, 
" No, grandfather, why should I go to town meeting ?" 
(being only a boy,) when he immediately added in the 
style peculiar to that day, " Go to larn." Little did 
I at that time appreciate the force of the expression, 
"Go to larn." Whether or not I have heeded the injunc- 
tion since, I leave for others. 

These men, and such as these, acted on the belief 
that there was something for every one to do, and that 
it behooved every one to do something. With them 
there was no place for drones; — would that such senti- 
ments prevailed more fully at the present day. There 



66 



-^ould be more of "wearing out," and less of "rusting 
out." 

I might name many other noble men of that day, 
whose descendants are still with us, such as the Aliens, 
the Davises, the Grinnells, the Hathaways, the Rodmans, 
the Russells, the Spooners, the Tabers, the Thorntons, 
&c., &c., not omitting some who still live amongst us, 
and who, by the even tenor of their lives, and the 
excellent example which they set us, command the ad- 
miration and respect of all, and who, I hope, may yet 
be spared to us for years to come. 

When I look over our city, and see the improvements 
which have taken place within my time, and over the 
territory represented by you, my fellow-citizens and 
neighbors, and then go further and embrace our whole 
country, I sometimes ask myself the question. Can these 
improvements continue ? and will science and art make 
the same rapid strides for the next fifty or one hundred 
years, as for the past? The only answer I can make 
to the query is the real Yankee one ; Why not ? 
What reason have we to suppose that we have reached 
the ne plus ultra in anything ? Although the steam 
engine in all its various appliances on the land and on 
the water, the magnificent clipper ship, the electric tele- 
graph, and the photographic art, are attainments the 
origin of- which is within the recollection of many of us, 
and which seem, each in itself, to have arrived at a 
high state of perfection, who of us can say the end has 
yet been reached? 

I for one do not think it has; when this wicked re- 
bellion which now presses upon us like an incubus, par- 
alyzing our energies, or forcing us into unwonted chan- 



67 



nels, shall be ended, and peace shall agam smile over 
our beloved' and undivided country, may we not hope 
to go on improving in all that is real, in all that is 
enduring, until we shall have reached the highest posi- 
tion to which any country can attain, honorable, digni- 
fied, exalted, on a foundation like adamant, with a 
superstructure of truth and righteousness ? 



ADDRESS 



OF 



WILLIAM W. CRAPO 



At a meeting of the committee of arrangements; Sept. 
15th, 1864, it was 

Voted, That the thanks of the committee be com- 
municated to William W. Crapo, Esq., for his highly 
interesting, valuable, and appropriate address delivered 
on the 14th instant, on the day set apart for the com- 
memoration of the two hundredth anniversary of the 
incorporation of the town of Dartmouth, and that he 
be requested to furnish the municipal authorities with 
a copy for the press. 

Geokge Howland, Jr., Chairman. 



New Bedford, Oct. 1, 18G4. 
Hon. George Howland, Jr., Chairman, &c. : 

My Dear Sir, Yours of the 17th ult., accompany- 
ing the vote of the committee on the Centennial Cele- 
bration, has been received. 

Herewith I inclose to you for publication a copy of 

the address delivered by me, as requested by your 

committee. 

Yours, very truly, 

William W. Crapo. 



ADDRESS. 



At the June term of the Plymouth Colony court in 
the year 1664, it was ordered that 

" All that tract of land commonly called and known 
by the name of Acushena, Ponagansett, and Coaksett, 
is allowed by the courts to be a township, and the 
inhabitants thereof have liberty to make such orders as 
may conduce to their common good in town concern- 
ments, and that the said town be henceforth called and 
known by the name of Dartmouth." 

This event — the birth of our municipality — demands 
a recognition. 

There are duties which we owe to our fathers as 
well as to our children. While posterity claims of us 
a faithful transmission of all the rights and privileges 
and blessings which have come to us from the past, and 
insists that we add our contribution to the sum of 
human progress, our forefathers as justly demand that 
we recognize by grateful acknowledgments and filial re- 
membrance, their services, self-denial, and heroism. There 
can be no more fitting occasion wherein to give expres- 
sion to tliese sentiments than that which assembles us 
together to-day, upon the two hundredth anniversary of 
the municipal existence of the old town of Dartmouth. 

The occasion dictates the character of the discourse. 
The thoughts turn instinctively to the early history of 
this ancient town, and to the incidents and institutions 



72 



and men which marked its origin and progress. In no 
better way can we commemorate the Past than by 
recalling these events, bringing to memory the names 
of those who then acted, and reciting their services and 
deeds. We come together to-day, a family of towns, 
the children of a common origin, having left from time 
to time the protection of the old Mother town for 
that separate corporate existence which the growth of 
population and the diversity of business interests ren- 
dered necessary. We come from all quarters of the 
old townsliip to celebrate its two hundredth birth-day, 
reviving the feeling of the family bond by recalling 
olden times and linking the present with the past. We 
look back upon this history with the same emotions as 
those who trace the record of a revered and honored 
ancestry. 

In the year 1G64 our town received its corporate 
existence and name. Let me briefly allude to its history 
prior to that time. In the summer of 1602 Bartholo- 
mew Gosnold, while fortifying his settlement upon the 
little islet within the island of Cuttyhunk, had crossed 
the Bay — described by Gabriel Archer, the chronicler 
of the expedition, as a " stately sound " — and had trod 
upon our shores. The Indians from the main land had 
visited him and his band of adventurers in their island 
home, and Gosnold had returned their visits. He landed 
somewhere in the vicinity of the Round Hills, called by 
him Hap's Hill, and followed the coast westward to 
Gooseberry Neck. The locality is described as possess- 
ing "stately groves, flowery meadows, and running brooks," 
and the adventurers were dcliglitcd with the climate, the 
beauty of the country, and the fertility of the soil. 



73 



Gosnold's idea of planting a colony in this vicinity 
failed, and tlic territory was uninhabited by the white 
man until after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. 
Looking back over this long period of time wc can 
hardly fail to discern why the settlement at Cuttyhunk 
was a failure and the settlement at Plymouth a success. 
Gosnold and Gilbert and Archer and Rosier and Brier- 
ton were gentlemen adventurers, in quest of novelty 
and the excitement of a bold, daring enterprise, with 
a hope of gain ; and when they had unfolded this fair 
land and had collected a sufficient quantity of sassafras 
root and cedar and furs to load their little bark, the 
only bond which tlien united them was the cargo they 
had collected, and each one was ambitious to return 
with it to England to profit by its sale and tell the 
marvellous stories of their adventures. We do not 
wonder then that although they found the red and 
white strawberry " as sweet and much bigger than in 
England," with " great store of deer and other beasts," 
and feasted and grew fat upon the young sea fowl 
which they found in their nests, they did not build up a 
permanent settlement. 

On the other hand. Carver and Bradford and Wins- 
low and Brewster and Standish, the men of the May- 
flower, came from far different motives ; not from gain, 
adventure, or novelty, but to plant a colony which should 
be permanent and enduring ; to carry out, heedless of 
privations and sufferings, heedless of the scorn and 
oppression behind, and the uncertainties and dangers be- 
fore, their ideas of a government founded upon equal- 
ity, justice, and religion. The colony at Plymouth, con- 
quering all obstacles, achieved permanency and growth. 



74 



and from thence came the early founders of Dartmouth. 
We are proud of our ancestry, — proud that the men 
of Dartmouth were Puritans. Those " stout-hearted and 
God-fearing men" were our fathers. Never can they 
be mentioned but with honor, for none ever did more 
or suffered more for the human race. Oppression did 
not intimidate, nor privations turn them. They were 
stern and unyielding in their convictions of the right, 
and thoroughly fixed and resolute in their purpose to 
found a Christian Commonwealth. Inspired with the one 
grand idea of a government resting upon liberty and 
religion, they thought not of policy, expediency, or com- 
promise, but listened only to the dictates of conscience 
and duty. Under their sturdy and unconquerable wills 
the wilderness yielded and the new world was opened 
to a nation of freemen. 

In the history of New England not enough prominence 
has been given to the pioneer colony of Plymouth. 
The settlement of the Massachusetts Colony seems to 
have overshadowed in history the importance of this 
first civil body politic. The Plymouth Colony led the 
van, and in the years in which they were alone, rested 
the whole problem. Encouraged by the success of the 
Plymouth settlement the Massachusetts colonists were 
emboldened, under the protection and guidance of the 
former, to apply for a Royal charter. We would not 
detract from the merit of Winthrop, Dudley, Saltonstall, 
and their associates, "gentlemen of figure and estate," 
for they were men of faith and fortitude, men of un- 
common wisdom and heroism ; but let us not be for- 
getful of those earlier men who smoothed away some of 
the rough places of the forest and opened to the men 



75 



of Massachusetts Bay and Boston, even though for a 
short distance and in a rude way, the path which led 
so triumphantly to civil and religious liberty. 

On the 29th day of November, 1652, the Indian Chief, 
Wesamequan (better known as Massasoit.) and his son 
Wamsutta (wlio was sometimes called Alexander by the 
English,) conveyed by deed to William Bradford, Cap- 
tain Standish, Thomas Southworth, John Winslow, John 
Cooke, and their associates, all the tract or tracts of 
land lying three miles eastward from a river called 
Cushenegg to a certain harbor called Acoaksett to a 
flat rock on the westward side of the said harbor. In 
this conveyance was included all the land within these 
boundaries, " with all the rivers, creeks, meadows, necks 
and islands that lie in and before the same, and from 
the sea upward to go so high that the English may 
not be annoyed by the hunting of the Indians in any 
sort of their cattle." 

The metes and bounds of this grant do not appear 
to be very definitely or clearly stated. More attention 
seems to have been given by the conveyancer to the 
consideration which the Indian chieftains were to receive. 
The price paid was thirty yards of cloth, eight moose- 
skins, fifteen axes, fifteen hoes, fifteen pair of breeches, 
eight blankets, two kettles, one cloak, two pounds in 
wampan, eight pair stockings, eight pair shoes, one iron 
pot, and ten shillings in other commodities. Even in 
those early days, when the forests and meadows and 
streams apparently were not valued very highly, dis- 
sensions and disputes arose concerning the title. A 
younger son of Wesamequan, Philip, Sagamore of Pokan- 



76 



nockett, afterwards known as one of the most bloody 
and remorseless of all the Indian warriors under the 
name of King Philip, had not been consulted, or had 
not given his written assent to the original conveyance. 
He soon began to annoy the settlers by frequent acts 
of trespass, and to question the correctness of the boun- 
dary lines. We find by the records, that agents — 
referees — were appointed "to set out and mark the 
bounds," and in 1665 Philip gave a quit-claim which 
quieted the title. 

This large tract of land, comprising the limits of old 
Dartmouth, was divided into thirty-four parts or shares. 
Two of these were subdivided, so that the original 
proprietors numbered thirty-six persons, of whom three 
were women — Sarah Brewster, Miss Jennings, and Sarah 
Warren. 

Not all of the thirty-six original proprietors settled 
here. Some undoubtedly bought the land as a specula- 
tion or investment rather than for a home, but an 
inspection of the names convinces us that many of them 
located permanently within our borders. We find in the 
list, the names of Howland, Morton, Manasses Kempton, 
Dunham, Shaw, Cooke, Soule, Faunce, Sampson, Delano, 
Bartlett, Palmer, Doty, Hi^ks, Brown and Bumpass, 
names familiar to us even in this day, and constantly 
recurring in the history of the town. 

It has always been stated that the old township of 
Dartmouth included and comprised the present town- 
ships of Dartmouth, Westport, New Bedford, Fairhaven, 
and Acushnet. The grant of land from the Indians 
embraces these towns. But the records of the colony 
of Rhode Island show that a part of the present towns 



i 
I 



77 

of Tiverton and of Little Compton were, prior to 1746, 
a part of Dartmouth."' 

The origin of the name of our town is a matter of 
conjecture, yet the inference is an easy and natural one. 
The Mayflower and Speedwell, the latter having taken 
on board her priceless freight at Leyden in Holland, 
sailed from Plymouth in Old England, and that name 
was given to the spot where they landed in New Eng- 
land. After the vessels left Plymouth, England, a dis- 
aster occurred to the Speedwell which compelled both 
vessels to put back, and they made a harbor in the 
seaport town of Dartmouth in the British Channel. 
Many of the original purchasers and some of the early 
settlers of the town came in the Mayflower, and the 
name of Dartmouth was so associated in their minds 
with the home left behind that it may naturally be pre- 
sumed it furnished them with the name for their new 
home. There is a further coincidence connected with 
the name. The little vessel — the Concord — which 
brought Gosnold to our shores in 1G02, belonged to 
Dartmouth, in England. It has been very fairly inferred 
by one of our local historians that the reports of the 
fair land they had visited in the new world which were 
carried back upon the return of this vessel, had been 
kept alive, and stimulated the adventurous of that sea- 
port town to seek their fortunes here, and give the 
spot the name of their former home. There can be 
no doubt but that we derive our name from this fish- 
ing town on the river Dart in the English Channel. 
How wonderful the change since then ! While the Dart- 

* Records of Colonj' of Eliode Island and Providence Plantations, vol. 5, p. 204. 
K 



78 



moutli whose birthday we celebrate has an aggregate 
population of thirty-five thousand, with a commerce known 
over the whole globe, the old town in England, with a 
population of less than five thousand, is as little known 
to-day as it was two hundred years ago. 

The inquiry naturally suggests itself. What were the 
prominent causes which led to this settlement ? It 
might have been due in part to the spirit of emigra- 
tion and change of locality which displayed itself even 
in those days as a trait in the New England character; 
it might have been the rich and fertile soil in the 
valleys of our rivers, fertile certainly when compared 
with the sand hills around Plymouth, enticing to agri- 
cultural labors ; it might have been the accessible and 
capacious harbors of the Acushnet and Apponagansett, 
and the safe and sheltered anchorage they afi'orded, 
giving promise of future commercial importance ; and 
attractions perhaps were found in the winding beauties 
of the Paskamansett and Acoakset. However much 
these and kindred influences may have contributed to 
the early settlement of Dartmouth, there is, in my 
opinion, a cause beyond them all, and which a careful 
reading of the records of the colony and the town 
forces me to adopt as the chief reason for the removal 
from Plymouth to Dartmouth. I have said our fathers 
were Puritans. They were more than that — they were 
the protestants of the Puritans. They were in sympathy 
with the established government at Plymouth in every 
thing except the one matter of compulsory taxation for 
religious purposes. Fully believing in freedom of con- 
science, they had early conceived a strong aversion to 



79 



the arbitrary impositiou of taxes by the civil power 
for the support of a ministry with which they were 
not in unison and over which they had no control. 
The early records of the town, imperfect and fragmen- 
tary as they are, in connection with the history of the 
colony, plainly tell us how earnestly and even bitterly 
this controversy was waged, and for how many years it 
was the source of discord and of persecution. The 
Plymouth Colony court annually apportioned to the town 
a tax for the support of ministers, in addition to the 
Province tax, but the Baptists and Quakers of Dart- 
mouth were inflexible in their resistance to it, and 
while the province rates were faithfully met, those for 
the maintenance of ministers were refused. It also 
troubled our good rulers at Plymouth that our fathers 
were so negligent in providing stated preaching according 
to the established puritan faith. 

We find this order of the court, passed in 1671 : 
" In reference unto the town of Dartmouth it is 
ordered by court, that whereas a neglect the last year 
of the gathering in of the sum of fifteen pounds accord- 
ing to order of court to be kept in stock towards the 
support of such as may dispense the word of God unto 
them, it is again ordered by the court that the sum of 
fifteen pounds be this year levied to be as a stock for 
the use aforesaid, to be delivered unto Arthur Hathaway 
and Sergeant Shaw, to be by them improved as oppor- 
tunity may present for the ends aforesaid." 

But this order, like others, seems to have been of 
no avail, for three years afterwards, when the inhabi- 
tants of Dartmouth had met together for the settling 



80 



of the bounds of the town, the occasion was seized 
upon for haranguing the people, " at which time the 
Governour, Mr. Hinckley, the Treasurer, Mr. Walley, 
Lieutenant Morton, and John Tomson did engage to 
give meeting with others to propose and endeavor that 
some provision may be made for the preaching of the 
word of God amongst them." 

Even the calamity which came upon them at this time 
from the violence and cruelty of the Indians, in the 
destruction of their homes and the loss of their prop- 
erty, did not soften the displeasure of the government 
at Plymouth, but rather served as an opportunity for 
renewed complaint and upbraiding. This appears by 
the order of court, passed in October of the following 
year. 

" This Court taking into their serious consideration 
the tremendous dispensation of God towards the people 
of Dartmouth, in suffering the barbarous heathen to spoil 
and destroy most of their habitations, the enemy being 
greatly advantaged thereunto by their scattered way of 
living, do therefore order that in the rebuilding and re- 
settling thereof, that they so order it as to live compact 
together, at least in each village, as they may be in a 
capacity both to defend themselves from the assault of 
an enemy, and the better to attend the public worship 
of God, and ministry of the word of God, whose care- 
lessness to obtain and attend unto we fear may have 
been a provocation of God thus to chastise their con- 
tempt of His gospel, which we earnestly desire the 
people of that place may seriously consider of, lay to 
heart, and be humbled for, with a solicitous endeavor 
after a reformation thereof, by a vigorous putting forth 



81 



to obtain an able, faithful dispenser of the word of 
God amongst them, and to encourage him therein ; the 
neglect whereof this court, as they must and God will- 
ing, they will not permit for the future." 

Howjever earnestly the Plymouth court were deter- 
mined to subdue the rebellious and heretical spirit of 
the early settlers, it does not appear that much success 
attended the effort. The Quakers and Baptists of 
Dartmouth were from the same stern, unyielding stock, 
and they were animated by a sense of religious duty 
as sincere and exacting as that which influenced the 
rulers at Plymouth. 

Stringent laws were from time to time enacted, but 
much of the legislation was inoperative, as the people of 
the town, while complying with the letter of the law, 
would give no heed to its spirit. Laws were passed 
in 1692 and 1695 requiring the towns to provide able, 
learned and orthodox ministers to dispense the word of 
God. Dartmouth did elect a minister, but the question 
of orthodoxy then arose. In 1704 the town was indicted 
for non-compliance with the law. At the town meeting 
held January 4th, 1705, this indignant reply was sent 
back to the court : 

" To the quarter sessions to be holden at Bristol the 
8th day of January, 1705 — we understand that our town 
is presented for want of a minister according to law, 
to which we answer that we have one qualified as the 
law directs — an honest man, fearing God, conscientious 
and a learned, orthodox minister, able to dispense the 
word and gospel to us." 

The name of this minister does not appear upon the 
records of the town. 



82 



In order to meet this question of orthodoxy the As- 
sembly passed a law in 1715, in which the prevention 
of the growth of atheism, irreligion and profaneness is 
suggested as a reason of its enactment, in which it was 
provided that the determination of who should be min- 
isters should rest ultimately with the General Court 
or Assembly. Dartmouth still refused obedience, and 
claimed the selection of her own minister. At the 
March town meeting, 1723, in defiance of an Act of 
that year, Nathaniel Howland was chosen minister, 
receiving 55 votes, while Samuel Hunt, a Presbyterian 
or independent, and the first preacher of that sect in 
our town, received 12 votes. 

The struggle culminated in 1724. In the year 1722 
the Assembly of Massachusetts passed an Act to raise 
one hundred pounds in the town of Dartmouth and 
seventy-two pounds eleven shillings in the town of Tiv- 
erton, (then a part of Massachusetts,) for the support 
of ministers whose selection was subject to the approval 
of the General Court. These two towns were the only 
ones in the Province that had not received any Pres- 
byterian ministers. To blind the eyes of the people 
this sum was put with the Province tax and was 
afterwards to be drawn out of the treasury. The 
spirit with which this was met by the inhabitants of 
Dartmouth can best be seen by quoting the record of 
the town meeting held November 26th, 1722. The 
record says : " It being put to vote whether the whole 
rate of one hundred eighty-one pounds twelve shillings, 
called Dartmouth's proportion of our province tax, be 
made by the selectmen, it passed in the negative. And 
it was put to vote whether eighty-one pounds twelve 



83 



shillings, being as we are informed by our Represent- 
ative, to be our just proportion of our Province tax, 
be forthwith made by the selectmen of said Dartmouth. 
Voted that it shall be made. Thirdly, Voted that the 
charges arising or set on the selectmen of said Dart- 
mouth either by execution on their bodies or estates 
or in appealing to his Majesty for relief be raised by 
town rates. Fourthly, Voted that seven hundred pounds 
be raised on the inhabitants of said Dartmouth by a 
town rate for securing the selectmen for not making 
the rate of one hundred pounds, and also for all ex- 
penses arising in our sending to England to his Majesty 
in the above premises. Fifthly, Voted that the select- 
men are to be allowed shillings each of them a 
day for every day they lie in jail on the town account." 

The town was thoroughly in earnest. Only five 
taxpayers protested against this appropriation of the 
seven hundred pounds. This sum, large for those days, 
was to be met by the tax of that year, and was not 
bequeathed to posterity in the form of a town debt. 
Prior to this — in 169G — the town had instructed the 
selectmen not to make the rates sent for by the 
General Treasurer for this purpose, and in the same 
year it was voted that Recompence Kirby and Mark 
Jenne should have fifty shillings apiece, part of the 
money they paid to Captain Pope, upon the account of 
their being "pressed," — and it was also voted that there 
should be a rate made of twenty-four pounds for a town 
fund. 

The bold and defiant attitude taken by the town 
could not be overlooked by the Province Rulers. The 
refusal of the selectmen to assess the tax was followed 



84 



by their imprisonment in Bristol jail, where they re- 
mained about eighteen months. The persons who were 
imprisoned were Philip Taber and John Akin, select- 
men of Dartmouth, and Joseph Anthony and John Sis- 
son, selectmen of Tiverton, a part of whom were 
Baptists and a part Quakers. An embassy was sent 
to England. Thomas Richardson and Richard Partridge, 
who were Quakers, interceded in their behalf Their 
petition, addressed to the King in Council, was an able 
document, and nobly did it plead for freedom of con- 
science and security of religion, civil liberty and prop- 
erty. The petition was considered at the Court of St. 
James on the 2d day of June, 1724, when were present 
the King's most Excellent Majesty and all the Lords 
of the privy council, and it was ordered that tlie 
obnoxious taxes be remitted, and that Philip Taber and 
his fellow-suflferers be immediately released from their 
imprisonment, and the Governor and all other officers 
of the Province of Massachusetts Bay were notified to 
yield obedience to these orders.'* 

This brief but brilliant record of the sacrifices and 
sufi'erings, the persistent fidelity and the triumphant suc- 
cess of the humble fathers of the old town of Dart- 
mouth, in the great struggle for the rights of conscience, 
which is still going on throughout the Christian world, 
entitles them to a high place in the veneration and 
gratitude of their posterity. They share, with Roger 
Williams, the exalted honor of declaring to their rulers, 
and to the world, that having fled from ecclesiastical 
oppression in the old world they would resolutely 
maintain their resistance to it in the new ; and that 

* Gough's History of the Quakers, vol. 4, p. 219. Benedict's Baptists, vol. 1, pp. 503^. 



85 



through the confiscation of their goods, the incarceration 
of their persons, amidst all the hardships of a new 
settlement in the wilderness, and under all the horrors 
of savage warfare, they would never falter in the asser- 
tion and maintenance of the great principle of "perfect 
liberty in all matters of religious concernment." We, 
their descendants, have entered into the fruits of these 
sacrifices and sufferings. Let us never forget to whose 
heroism and fidelity we owe the priceless blessing of our 
spiritual freedom, — that it is to the hardy yeomanry 
who two centuries ago cleared these fields, now waving 
with the coming harvest, of the primitive forests which 
covered them, we are indebted as well for "a church 
without a bishop," as for "a state without a king." 

The larger portion of the early settlers were Friends, 
and we find them recognized as a religious body in 
the town as early as 1683. Their first meeting house 
was built in 1699, and was located upon the spot now 
occupied by them at Apponagansett. Their influence as 
a sect can be plainly seen and felt even now, and much 
of the high toned morality, generous and practical phi- 
lanthropy and pure minded Christianity which have blessed 
and developed our people is owing to their religious 
teachings. 

Next to the Friends, in numbers and influence, stood 
the Baptists. John Cooke, whose name we meet with 
on the first and on nearly every page of the early 
records of the town as a deputy and a selectman, 
filling various offices of trust and honor, was a Baptist 
minister for many years. But this same town official, 
October 29th, 1670, was fined ten shillings '-for break- 



86 



ing the Sabbath by unnecessary travelling thereon." If 
the record of the case had been preserved it would 
have appeared, we think, that Elder John Cooke was 
not a Sabbath-breaker but travelling upon his circuit as 
a Baptist preacher. 

The first Congregational Society was formed at Acush- 
net. No history of this religious body in our town 
can be complete without a mention of Samuel West, 
D. D., who was the pastor of the Congregational Church 
at Acushnet from 1761 to 1803. Doctor West was a 
man of great learning, of earnest piety, and sincerely 
devoted to his pastoral duties. A lover of disputation, 
he was always ready and keen in argument ,• possessed 
of an original and vigorous mind, and thoroughly in- 
formed upon all of the doctrinal issues of the day, he 
was an able champion of the cause he espoused. His 
memory is cherished not only for his successful labors 
and his great influence in the religious teachings of a 
hundred years ago, but for his patriotic services in the 
war of the revolution. Few men have lived in our 
town who for so long a period of time exerted so 
beneficial an influence and commanded so high respect 
and confidence as Doctor Samuel West. 

Nowhere upon the face of the globe has the prin- 
ciple of self government, the capacity and right of men 
to make laws for themselves and regulate their munici- 
pal affairs, been so fully illustrated as in the early 
history of New England. The most perfect democra- 
cies that mankind has ever known are found in the 
early New England towns. Their town meetings were 
the places where the whole body of the citizens met, 



87 



and where were discussed, with equal freedom by every 
one, all topics of importance, whether local or national, 
moral or political. Here they learned to understand 
their rights and privileges as citizens, and acquired 
moral and intellectual strength to defend them. In 
those days there was no centralization of official duties 
and responsibilities as now, the government did not 
rest upon a few, but every man was compelled to give 
his time and judgment to the administration of the 
town affairs. In order to secure that full and prompt 
attendance upon the deliberations of the town which 
the business required, Dartmouth voted, — in July 1674 — 
ten years after its organization, " that all town meet- 
ings shall begin at 10 o'clock and continue until the 
Moderator duly release the town, not exceeding four 
o'clock. Also that all such persons as do neglect for 
a year all the town meetings shall forfeit to the town 
six pence apiece, and for coming to the meeting too 
late three pence an hour." 

No wonder that with such rules our early municipal 
affairs were ably administered. True, some of the leg- 
islation of the town may seem to us trivial, for example, 
that every householder shall kill twelve black-birds be- 
tween the months of January and May or pay a penalty 
for the neglect, and that a crow should count for three 
black-birds, but yet every inhabitant became most thor- 
oughly a part of the town and identified in its pros- 
perity and well being. 

This close attention to public business, as might be 
supposed, was at times annoying and irksome, and 
efforts were sometimes made by individuals to avoid 
these duties. In 1751, this article was inserted in the 



88 



warrant of the annual meeting — '•' Whereas the Easterly 
and Westerly Tillages in said town, experience teaches, 
have often neglected and omitted their duty in coming 
to said meetings to help carry on and manage the 
affairs of said town, especially in the difficult seasons 
of the year and foul weather, (and not in danger of 
being chosen to troublesome offices,) and so have at 
such times trusted and almost entirely relied and de- 
pended en the Middle village, of which the body of the 
people therein inhabiting live remote from said house, 
to do all the business of said town, which said Middle 
village is obliged to do though a hardship ; otherwise 
said town would have incurred many a fine for neglect 
of duty, the want of grand and petit jurymen, and 
otTierways suffered." 

In order to meet this difficulty it was voted to move 
the town-house. But the removal of the town-house did 
not remedy the evils complained of, or, if this end was 
attained jiew evils arose, for the next year the" select- 
men inserted an article in the warrant — "To see if 
the persons who carried away the town-house will bring 
it back again and set it up in the same place where 
they took it from, in as good repair as it was when 
they took it away, and for the town to act on the affair 
as they should think proper." 

This town-house I infer was the one votetd in 1739 
to be built, the dimensions of which were to be "nine 
feet between joints and twenty-two feet wide and thirty- 
six feet long, with a chimney at one end with a suita- 
ble roof and windows at the same." 

The mode of conducting the town business was similar 



89 



to that now adopted, but the style of some of the 
warrants would not be tolerated in these days. It was 
customary for the selectmen in calling a town meeting 
not only to state the business to be considered, but 
also very elaborately to discuss the several subjects, 
thereby furnishing to the people not only the question 
but the arguments in favor of or against it. It might 
have been that this full presentation of the merits of 
the case and the reasons for action elicited more at- 
tention, and in the language of the old town clerks 
was productive of "large debate." As an illustration 
of this peculiar and amusing feature in the presentation 
of the topics for town action, let me quote from the 
records. 

The sixth article in the selectmen's warrant for the 
March meeting, 1741, reads thus: 

" That whereas such course does much abound within 
said town, many running about from house to house to 
supply their own present want miserably neglecting their 
families at home, which is the only cause of manys 
suifering who are not capable of labour, which practise 
is to the grate detriment of that part of the inhabi- 
tants that are industrious and laborious, which perni- 
cious practice together with spending idly what they have 
or earn is a grate if not the only cause of scarcity 
of bread in said town, now to pass a vote at said 
meeting for the building a workhouse in said town for 
the setting and keeping to work all such persons who 
misspend their time as above stated which said vote is 
thought by all those that request the same cannot be 
spoken against except by those which are in danger of 
breaking into said house themselves." 



90 



Another example of this presentation of reasons in 
the warrant of the selectmen occurs in 1746, when an 
effort was made to divide the county or create a new 
county seat. This question both before and after this 
date engaged the attention of the people of Dartmouth 
for many years. At one time it was proposed to 
divide the county and join Tiverton and Little Comp- 
ton with us as a new county. At another time it was 
proposed to change the county seat to Assonet as more 
central than Taunton. The question was finally set- 
tled in 1828, after an agitation of over one hundred 
years, by making New Bedford a half-shire town. The 
article in the warrant for the town meeting held in 
1746 is as follows : 

"To consult and vote something with respect to 
petitioning the General Court that we may have a 
County taken off or made on this side of Assonet River, 
otherwise we must unavoidably be expressed to go and 
our children after us, for what we know, to Taunton, 
which will be upwards of thirty five miles distance for 
many of said inhabitants, which will be in the journey 
extremely tedious and expensive, it being too far to 
set out from our homes to get there before the Court 
Setts, as likewise the largeness of the County agravates 
the case by reason that one case must waite for an- 
other and is at times the occasion of adjournment. In 
the whole it will be tedious and expensive to Plaintiff, 
Defendant, Jurymen and Evidences. But more especially 
to Poor Widows who are oft times obliged to go 
several times before an Estate can be settled with the 
Judge of Probate." 

It was certainly very convenient for the people to 



91 



have the arguments all arranged for them before they 
were called upon to vote. That our fathers took no 
offence at this course is evident from its constant re- 
currence. 

The topics suggested by an occasion like the present 
are numerous. The subject is a fruitful one, and there 
should be written with fullness and accuracy the history 
of the town. No simple address, however carefully and 
elaborately prepared, can meet this want. Let this 
anniversary stimulate and encourage the work. The 
materials are fast fading away, and in a few years 
much that can now be recorded with •precision and 
correctness must become a matter of mere conjecture. 
Of equal, if not of greater importance is the rescue 
and preservation of our early records, which have been 
heedlessly and, I am disposed to say, criminally suffered 
to become lost or destroyed, but whose restoration, so 
far as possible, is now in able hands.* 

In the remaining time allotted to me on this occa- 
sion, I can only refer, and that very briefly, to two 
of the most prominent events of the past two hundred 
years. 

No one epoch of the town deserves to be mentioned 
more prominently than its devastation by the Indians 

* Tlie importance of gathering together and an'anging tlie fragments of towni records wliich 
are still left to us may he Inferred from the action of tlie town meeting held in May, 1774, 
when a committee was appointed " to overhaul the towni records and make report what part 
of said records stand in need of new drafting." The committee reported, among other 
things, that some of the records "were so worn and in pieces and the leaves so defaced that 
the records stand in danger of being almost wholly lost or obliterated." Altliough Benjamin 
Aikin and Benjamin Russell, Jr., were authorized to new draft said records at the expense 
of the town, yet it does not appear that anything further was done, and there has l)cen 
ninety years of wear and tear since then with all the casualties of time and neglect. 

Measures were taken in 18C2, by the authorities of New Bedford and Dartmouth, to have 
the town records now remaining aiTanged and copied. James B. Congdon, Esq., was ap- 
pointed to execute the work, which has been prosecuted with his accustomed earnestness and 
fidelity and with the most satisfactory progress, ensuring its speedy completion. 



92 



during King Philip's war. No other portion of terri- 
tory was so desolated by the ravages of the savage 
warfare carried on by this Indian Chieftain. Tradition 
informs us that every white habitation within the lim- 
its of the town was destroyed. The inhabitants took 
refuge in garrisons — the principal one of which was 
Russell's garrison, named after John Russell, a prominent 
man in the town, which was situated near the head 
waters of the Apponagansett on the east side of the 
river. Near this on the opposite bank the Indians had 
a rude fortification. There was also a garrison for the 
whites on Palmer's Island. During this war Dartmouth 
was relieved, on account of her home defences, from fur- 
nishing any men under the military levies, and during 
the war and for several years afterwards she was omit- 
ted in the tax rates of the colony. It is an interesting 
fact that while this destitution and suffering existed 
"contribution was made by divers Christians in Ireland" 
(so says the record) "for the relief of such as are 
impoverished, distressed and in necessity by the late 
Indian war."* How nobly has this charity been returned 
many times since then by the Christian people of Dart- 
mouth in contributing relief to the famishing and suf- 
fering of Ireland ! And whenever hereafter the cry 
shall come from that generous-hearted people for aid 
and succor, let it be liberally furnished, for it is but 
the payment of a debt which our fathers have charged 
upon us. 

The other prominent event to which I would allude 
is the burning of Bedford Village in the war of the 

» Plymouth Colony records 1676-7, 6th of March. 



93 



revolution. This act of the British army appears to 
have proceeded from motives of retaliation and punish- 
ment rather than for purposes of plunder. Our harbor 
had from the beginning of the war been noted as a 
rendezvous for privateers, and the damage inflicted upon 
English commerce by the whalemen of Dartmouth had 
excited the deepest resentment. As early as May, 
1774 — but a few weeks after the skirmish at Lexing- 
ton and before the battle of Bunker Hill, the British 
cruiser Falcon had captured in the Bay three vessels 
belonging to Sandwich. A schooner was fitted out 
from Dartmouth under the command of Captain Equy 
which recaptured two of these vessels with fifteen Brit- 
ish officers and marines. The captors were perplexed 
what disposition to make of the prisoners, but they 
were finally sent to the Provincial Committee of Safety 
then in session at Cambridge, the headquarters of the 
American army, and by that body were ordered into 
confinement at Concord. The privateer Providence, 
whose name is associated with so many brilliant naval 
achievements, had her rendezvous here. She was a sloop 
of about ninety tons, and had formerly been employed 
in the whale fishery. At one time, it is said, she was 
under the command of the illustrious John Paul Jones. 
Her most famous exploit, under Captain Hacker, was 
with His Majesty's brig Diligent of twelve guns, which she 
captured and brought into our harbor after a most de- 
termined and bloody engagement. The fame of this ves- 
sel and other privateers of Dartmouth excited to acts of 
retaliation and vengeance. Accordingly Major-General 
Grey, with a fleet of two frigates, an eighteen gun brig, 
and about thirty-six transports, comprising a force of 



94 



five thousand men, was ordered to the work of destruc- 
tion, On Saturday, the 5th day of September, 1778, 
the British fleet appeared in the Bay. The official 
reports of the English are well known, but there never 
has been published any full and detailed American ac- 
count of this affair. Edward Pope, Esq., a man of 
distinction and holding a judicial position in the town, 
furnished a brief notice of it in 1784. I am enabled, 
from the manuscript collections of a former resident* of 
the town to present the events of that day as gathered 
from the lips of those who were actors in its exciting 
scenes. Perhaps I cannot better use a portion of your 
time on this occasion than by a recital of those inci- 
dents. A company of artillery consisting of about eighty 
privates had been sent from Boston for the protection 
of the town. The building occupied by them as bar- 
racks was the " Poor House " — a long, low building 
which stood on Sixth street near the present site of 
Philip Anthony's dwelling house. The officers quartered 
at Mrs. Doubleday's, on Water street, a short distance 
north of the "Four Corners." The company was com- 
manded by Captain James Gushing, Lieutenants Joseph 
Bell, William Gordon, and James Metcalf. This com- 
pany, although stationed here, had, a short time previous 
to the landing of the British, been ordered to Rowland's 
Ferry, now called Stone Bridge. But during the day. 
Lieutenants Gordon and Metcalf had returned with a 
small part of the company and one gun. There was 
a garrison at Fort Phoenix, commanded by Captain Timo- 
thy Ingraham, with Lieutenant Foster and thirty-six men, 

» Hon. Henry II. Crapo. 



95 



where there were eleven pieces of cannon mounted, with 
a supply of twenty-five casks of powder. 

About one o'clock in the afternoon Worth Bates, who 
lived near McPherson's wharf, at Bellville, and who 
had been down the Bay fishing, landed at the Fort 
and informed Captain Ingraham that a British fleet was 
in the Bay. The fleet soon made its appearance. The 
two frigates and brig anchored opposite the mouth 
of the Acushnet River and a little below Clark's Point. 
A portion of the transports were anchored outside the 
Great Ledge and opposite the mouth of the Cove, 
while another portion of them dropped in to the east- 
ward of the larger vessels. The troops, including 
light horse, artillery, &c., were landed in barges. The 
larger portion landed on the west side of Clark's 
Point on the present Alms-House Farm. The others 
landed on the Fairhaven side a little east of the Fort, 
behind a point of woods and under cover of the guns 
of the frigates. The troops which landed on Clark's 
Point marched up the road now called County street, 
to the head of Main (now Union) street. At this time 
it was near sunset. A part of the troops here wheeled 
to the right, passing down Main street, while the re- 
mainder continued their march north on County street. 
The few men under Lieutenants Gordon and Metcalf 
(it has been stated there were not fifteen able-bodied 
men on this side of the river at that time) retreated 
with their single piece of artillery as the British ad- 
vanced. At the point now made by the junction of 
North street with County street, on the west side of 
County street, were thick woods. Under cover of these 
woods, William Hayden and Oliver Potter fired upon the 



96 



troops and killed two horsemen. A few minutes after, 
three citizens of the town, Abraham Russell, Thomas 
Cook, aud Diah Trafford, all of whom were armed, 
were discovered by the British coming up a cross street. 
When near the corner of County street these three men 
were fired upon and shot down. Trafford was shot 
through the heart and died instantly, after which his 
face was badly cut with the sabres of the British. 
Cook died about daylight, and Russell about ten o'clock 
the next morning. Lieutenant Gordon was taken pris- 
oner but afterwards escaped. Lieutenant Metcalf was 
mortally wounded during the night at Acushnet. He 
died three days afterwards and was buried with mili- 
tary honors on the hill by the meeting house at Acush- 
net. 

The detachment which marched down Union street 
immediately commenced the work of destruction. The 
first buildings fired were the rope-walk and the distil- 
lery. Soon after, all the stores and warehouses and a 
number of dwelling houses and barns were burned, to- 
gether with every vessel in port except those anchored 
in the stream. The number of vessels destroyed was 
seventy, of which four were privateers and eight were 
large ships laden with valuable cargoes. 

Between eight and nine o'clock in the evening the 
detachment which landed on the east side of the river 
advanced on the Fort. Two guns were fired at the 
fleet, and then, after spiking the guns, the garrison re- 
treated to the north and concealed themselves, leaving 
the colors of the Fort flying. The British supposing the 
Fort to be still garrisoned, opened a heavy artillery fire 
upon it, but they soon ceased when no response was 



97 



made. The euemy discovering the position of the con- 
cealed soldiers, fired upon them, wounding a. man named 
Robert Grossman, and taking two prisoners, John Skiff 
and his father. Before the evacuation of the Fort a 
train of powder was placed from the magazine to the 
platform. The British after taking possession applied a 
slow match to the magazine, which communicated with 
the train left by the garrison and an explosion occurred 
sooner than was intended, killing one, if not more, of 
the British. After burning the barracks, the detachment 
moved north and effected a junction with the force 
moving down from Acushnet. The next day the troops 
re-embarked near the Fort. 

The night following, a number of barges came up the 
river, but were lircd upon and driven back, a body of 
militia at this time having arrived from Middleborough. 
Major (afterwards General) Israel Fearing displayed 
great gallantry on this occasion. 

On Sunday, 'the sixth day of September, two tories 
(named Eldad Tupper and Joseph Castle) who had been 
driven from the town, instigated the British to send a 
force into Apponagansett harbor. A family of Akinses, 
strong whigs, had been chiefly instrumental in the ex- 
pulsion of the tories, and they were the principal suf- 
ferers by this raid. Captain Elihu Akins' dwelling house 
and a new brig on the stocks, were burned. The 
dwelling house of James Akins, his brother, and also a 
house belonging to Meribah Akins, were fired and burned 
to the ground. 

After this the fleet proceeded to Martha's Vineyard, 
where the enemy seized a large quantity of fire arms, 
cattle, and sheep, and also one thousand pounds sterling, 



98 



the latter being a tax recently collected by authority 
of the Continental Congress. 

Dartmouth was in no respect behind her sister towns 
of Massachusetts in devotion and sacrifice to the cause 
of liberty. She contributed freely in men and money, 
and although we find in the military annals of the 
period no names of distinction belonging to the town, 
yet we know that her people were thoroughly in sym- 
pathy with the revolution. On the nineteenth day of 
September, 1768, "Walter Spooner was appointed by the 
town to represent it in Faneuil Hall, Boston, to consider 
what wise and prudent measures should be adopted to 
prevent the distress and misery which were likely to 
come upon them by reason of the number of regular 
troops to be quartered in Massachusetts. In 1774 a 
town meeting was called "to take into the most mature 
and serious consideration the melancholy and distress- 
ing situation of public afiairs of this Province, and to 
adopt and pursue all those rational and justifiable 
methods which, by the blessings of Heaven attending 
our endeavors, will have the greatest tendency to re- 
move from us and our fellow-sujBferers those troubles 
we feel and fear under the present frowns of the British 
Administration." 

The town meeting was held July 18th, 1774. Hon. 
Walter Spooner, Benjamin Akin, Esq., William Davis, 
William Tallman, Major Ebenezer Willis, Jireh Willis, 
Seth Pope, Seth Hathaway, and Hannaniah Cornish, were 
appointed a committee to prepare and draw up what 
they should deem most proper as expressing the sense 
of the meeting, and report in the afternoon for the 
town's consideration. The report of these gentlemen 



99 



was accepted. It was Voted — '-'That we are grieved 
at being necessitated to act a part which at first view 
appears unfriendly with respect to our manufacturing 
brethren and friends in Great Britain and Ireland, but 
we trust we shall readily be excused by them when 
they consider that this part of our conduct is wholly 
designed, and in our judgment will have the greatest 
tendency of anything in our power, to save both them 
and us from BONDAGE and SLAVERY, for upon ma- 
ture consideration we judge the several late unconsti- 
tutional acts of the British Parliament have a direct 
tendency to destroy the harmony which has subsisted 
among all the British subjects and to entirely abolish 
the English Constitution and form of government, and 
therefore as the most probable means to prevent those 
destructive purposes we unite with our American breth- 
ren, and 

Resolve, That we will not purchase any goods man- 
ufactured in Great Britain and Ireland which shall be 
imported from thence after this day; that we will not 
purchase any English goods of any hawker or pedler; 
that we will not purchase any foreign teas whatever; 
that we will not export any flax-seed to any foreign 
market; that we do acquiesce in the nature and neces- 
sity of raising our proportion of money to pay the 
Congress and to raise the same by subscription, and 
that these resolves do remain in force so long as the 
present grievous acts of the British Parliament remain 
unrepealed." 

At this meeting a committee of correspondence was 
chosen to act with other committees in America. And 
also a resolve was passed advancing "the town's pro- 



100 



portion of the money to pay the committee of Congress." 
In the county Congress held at Taunton the same 
year " to devise and act on such measures as the exi- 
gencies of the times require," the town was ably and 
patriotically represented. 

Not the men alone, but the women of Dartmouth fully 
entered into the resolutions of non-intercourse with Great 
Britain. They had their League Society which was more 
exacting in the observance of its principles than the 
Ladies' League Associations of the present day. In 
January 1774, fifty-seven ladies of Bedford Village had 
a meeting at which they entered into an agreement not 
to use any more India tea; and having heard that a 
gentleman there had lately bought sgme, they requested 
he would immediately return it. This request he com- 
plied with, whereupon the ladies treated him with a 
glass of " this country wine " and dismissed him, highly 
pleased with his exemplary conduct. A number of gen- 
tlemen present gave him three cheers in approbation of 
his noble behavior.* 

This occurred six months prior to the action of the 
town meeting, and doubtless contributed much in forming 
the public sentiment of the town. 

There are many other events in our history which 
deserve a mention. Much might be said upon the cir- 
cumstances and state of public feeling which attended the 
separation of the several towns from the Mother town, 
and the strong local political prejudices and antagonism 
which existed at times between the different sections of 
the town. The separation of Fairhaven from New Bed- 

* Dodslej''s Annual Register, vol. 17, page 97. 



101 



ford, the incidents of which are fresh in the minds of 
many here present, was caused by the earnestness of 
conflicting political opinions. The same independence 
of thought and persistency of action which characterized 
the early settlers in resisting the church-rates, can be 
seen throughout the whole political history of the 
town. 

Another fruitful theme, and one richly entitled to a 
place in an address of this nature, is found in the 
treatment of the negro race by the inhabitants of the 
town. Dartmouth, and especially New Bedford, for many 
years has been to them a city of refuge and safety, 
and here, in a far greater degree than elsewhere, have 
been held out to these people the encouragements of 
quiet homes, the benefits of education, and the rewards 
attending fidelity of labor and diligence in business. 

It was in Westport that Paul Cuffee, the negro sailor, 
merchant and farmer, lived, and they were his determined 
and manly efforts, and his appeals and arguments, ac- 
companied with a refusal to pay the taxes assessed 
upon him, on the ground that he had no voice or vote 
with his neighbors, that finally secured from the Legis- 
lature of Massachusetts equal rights of suffrage for the 
colored man with the white man, — a system which the 
war of the rebellion is likely to incorporate into the 
political constitutions of all the States of the Union. 
Thus we see Dartmouth again in advance of the age, 
settling within herself another of the great problems in 
human progress. 

Dartmouth, too, has her biographies. Although the 
peculiar religious training and teaching of her children, 
through the Society of Friends, has been such that we 



102 



find few names of distinction in professional or military 
life, yet no town or city in the world can boast of 
merchants more truly princely in nobleness of character 
and far-seeing mercantile ability, or of mechanics more ' 
skilled in the arts and craft they practise. "William 
Rotch, Sen,, the Christian merchant, and George Clag- 
horn, the builder of the frigate Constitution, are names 
that any people in any age may cherish with pride. 

But time forbids the further mention of these and 
many kindred topics. 

And now, in conclusion, fellow-citizens of Dartmouth, 
what are the duties and responsibilities attaching to us 
in view of the Past ? We have ^een that our fathers 
were industrious, thoughtful, earnest men; that they 
were bold and independent in their opinions, resolute 
and unfaltering in their actions. They call upon us 
likewise to be brave for the truth, never to yield the 
right, never to tolerate an unjust enactment or a false 
public sentiment. Their frugal economy, laborious in- 
dustry, and temperate, simple habits, enabled them to 
subdue the wilderness, and secured for them happy and 
comfortable homes. Their intrepidity and daring upon 
the ocean, and their energy in business, secured for them 
wealth and prosperity. The character of our fathers 
was formed among our granite rocks and sturdy oaks. 
They were faithful in purpose, patient and persevering 
in endeavor. They call upon us to resist the tempta- 
tions of ease, and to stand firm against the encroach- 
ments of luxury. They bid us boldly to grapple with 
the storms of adversity, and with heroic valor and 
unfaltering faith struggle for the triumphs of human 



10^ 



advancement and liberty. Our fathers, who laid so 
broad the foundations of domestic peace and social 
order, and established, through much patience and suf- 
fering, our glorious institutions, call upon us to exhibit 
the same piety, integrity and courage in maintaining 
them. As they prospered, so may we prosper, advanc- 
ing in resources, intelligence, virtue, and happiness, an 
enterprising and afSuent population, invincible against 
domestic assaults and foreign violence. 

Many of us here present are of the old stock. Let 
us acquit ourselves as worthy sons of noble sires. Let 
us emulate their virtues, and meeting the emergencies 
which arise in our paths practise their self-denial. Thus 
may we, while mindful of the memory of the great and 
good who have preceded us — who so faithfully labored 
for our benefit — receive the homage of grateful commen- 
dation from those who years hence will celebrate the 
return of this anniversary. 



POEM 



BY 



JAMES B. CONGDON 



At a meeting of the committee of arrangements, Sep- 
tember 15 th, 1864, it was 

Voted, That our thanks are due to James B. Congdon, 
Esq., for the poem delivered by him on the occasion of the 
commemoration of the two hundredth anniversary of the 
incorporation of the town of Dartmouth, and that he be 
requested to furnish a copy for publication. 

George Howland, Jr., Chairman. 



His Honor George Howland^ Jr., Mayor of New Bedford, 
Chairman of the committee of arrangements for the Centen- 
nial Celebration : 

My Dear Friend, The manuscript of the poem read by 
me on the 14th instant is at the disposal of the committee. 
With the highest regard, 

Jambs B. Congdon. 
New Bedford, September 27th, 1864. 



PREFATORY. 



Dartmouth was incorporated 1664. In 1676, during 
the war with Philip of Mount Hope every white man's 
dwelling was destroyed, and the inhabitants who escaped 
with their lives found refuge in the garrisons. In 1764 the 
blundering legislation of England began — war soon followed, 
and in 1778 the raid of General Grey laid the fairest por- 
tion of Dartmouth in ruins. The ending of the second cen- 
tury and the beginning of the third finds us again at war. 
The Indian has not fired our dwellings or massacred our 
people; no foreign raiders have laid waste our homes or 
shot down our citizens: but many a home and many a 
heart between " Cushnet and Coackset " are desolate, and 
the bones of our strong men and youth are bleaching upon 
the battle-fields. We celebrate the close of the second 
century of our municipal existance in the midst of the most 
awful civil war known in history. A blow is now, as before, 
aimed at our National Life ; and now, as before, shall we 
triumph, and secure, may we not hope, liberty for all within 
our borders and more than a century of peace and pros- 
perity. 



F O E IS^ 



I. 

From *Nacata to t Coakset's shore, 
Where many a happy home before, 

In peace and plenty stood, 
Now silent desolation reigns : 
Upon the quiet hills and plains, 
Descends full charged with direst woe 
The vengeance of the savage foe. 

In storm of fire and blood. 

II. 

By broad Acushnet's rising shore, 
On Paskamanset's banks, no more, 

The peaceful hamlets rest; 
By Coakset's gently moving stream. 
No more the cottage hearth-fires gleam. 
No more the happy toilers there 
Guide through the soil the cleaving share, 

In healthful labor blest. 

• Nacata — generaUy known as West's Island, belonging to the to^vn of Fairhaven. Many 
years ago John West gave by wiU one half of this island to trustees, who were to bestow 
the income upon the industrious and worthy poor. As but little income was derived from it, 
the property was sold. The New Bedford monthly meeting of Friends has the appointment 
of the trustees, and the fund is now a means of relief to many a poor but worthy person. 

" From Nacata to Coakset," that is from West's Island to Westport, was the description 
of the old town of Dartmouth. 

t Coakset — Westport. Dartmouth was early, divided into three settlements, constantly 
referred to in the old records. Aciishnet, now New Bedford, Ponagansett, the present Dart- 
mouth, and Coakset. The settlements were on the banks of the three rivers generally called 
by the same names, so that the names sometimes were used for the villages and sometimes 
for the rivers. The tract of land in the neighborhood of the Acushnet ia frequently called 
the Acushnet country. 



110 



III. 

Again the kingly *Metacom — 

The brave Wampanoag's cliief has come 

In triumph to his ancient home; 

No pale-faced foeman near: 
With savage joy his eyes behold 
The burning cot, the scattered fold, 
The scalp displayed by warrior bold, 

The prisoner's torturing fear. 

IV. 

Thus from the vengeful Philip came 
Baptismal rite of blood and flame," 

A storm of waste and woe; 
Thus by a sad and mournful fate 
Were Dartmouth's homes made desolate 

Two HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 

V. 

But Pockanocket's king no more 

Shall scourge with blood the southern shore ; 

The gallant Church has met the foe, 

And Metacomet's head lies low : 

A noble chief in war and chase ; 

The last of Massasoit's race. 

But where is Philip's son? 
See holy men in stern debate 
Resolve the question of his fate — 

The deed of shame is done. 

* Metacom, Metacomot, rhilip. This warr-ior is Iviiown in our history bj' all these names. 
It never has been fully determined what relation he and his brother Alexander bore to Mas- 
sasoit. By most writers they are called his children, by some his grandchildren, and by 
others his nephews. Much diiTerence of opinion has been expressed as to his character. Let 
all who are disposed to judge him harshly remember that he was a monarch struggling for 
the tlirone of his ancestors. 



Ill 

All hope forever to destroy, 
The mother and her gentle boy 
Are sold ! ! beneath Bermuda's sky, 
They toil in life-long slavery.* 

VI. 

The land had rest — on fCusHNET's shore 
The red man's whoop is heard no more : 
No more on ;|: Paskamanset's tide, 
The swift canoe is seen to glide : 
One hundred years have rolled away, 
Since Philip with his wild array, 
Had fought and fell, and closed the sway 
Of Indian Sagamore for aye. 

VII. 

The laud had rest — on hill and plain, 
The lights of home are bright again. 
And golden fields of ripened grain 

Are waving in the gale : 
While by each stream and river's side 
The village homes arc spreading wide, 
And on the peaceful waters glide 

Full many a gallant sail. 



* This is a sad but a true story. Wlion tlio ministers, after the custom in the early days 
of tlie riymoutli Colony, were consulted as to the disposition to be made of the widow and 
son of Philip, they advised that the latter should bo put to death. John Hopper, son-in-law 
of Philip, and Betty Hopper, Philip's grand-daughter, were residents of Eochester and died 
there. Betty was proud of her descent and refused all intercourse with the common people 
of her race. 

t Acushnet was often written without the A. This letter was added to the names of the 
three villages — Cushnet, Aponagauset, and Acuakset. 

t The Slocum's River of the maps. The gcogi-aphers have connivetl to get rid of nearly all 
our beautiful and signiiicant Indian names. 



112 



VIII. 

On calm Acushnet's western slope, 
Bedford, the future city's hope, 
Is rising in its fortunes bright, 
Ambitious that the wood-crowned height 

One day should be its own — 
While on the eastern plain we see 
Its modest looking vis-a-vis, 
Fairhaven, on its quiet way, 
To take upon a future day, 

An honored place alone. 

IX. 

Upon the hill-side's gentle rise, 
* " Between the Rivers,''^ whence the eyes 
Of GosNOLD saw the sunlight gleam 
On field and forest, bay and stream, 

See Padanaram rest: 
Not any lovelier spot, I ween. 
Had England's noble captain seen. 
Since, by the Virgin Queen's command. 
From t Dartmouth's old historic strand, 
The wide-spread ocean-field to plough, 
He guided forth the Concord's prow 

Upon his venturous quest. 

X. 

Nor less the prosperous work has sped 
At Paskamanset's tidal head: 

» The meaning of Padan-Aram. 

t Dartmouth, County of Devon, England. See address to the Mayor, Aldermen, and Re- 
corder of Dartmouth, in tliis pubUcation. 



113 



The toiling wheels that clatter there, 
The sturdy yeoman's labors share : 
With peace and competence are crowned 
The humble dwellings ranged around, 

On rocky hill and plain: 
A spot to nature's lover dear;* 
A spot the poet's heart to cheer; 
An honored too — there first appear 
The steps of hardy pioneer 

On Dartmouth's wide domain. 
Dear to my heart thy rock-ribbed hills, 
Thy valleys green, thy gentle rills, 
Thy sunny nooks, where 'neath the snows 
The fragrant Epiga3a blows. 
And tempts, ere winter yields her sway, 
The blooming maiden's steps away, 
In many a wooded, warm recess, 
To seek its starry loveliness. 

XI. 

AcoAKSET. with her sea- washed strand — 
t The West-Port of the border land — 
The western limit of the sway 
And rule of Massachusetts Bay, 

Has sprung to life anew : 
Along the gentle JNoquochoke, 
How cheerfully ascends the smoke, 

* The sccnerj' in the neighborhood of Eiissell's Mills, as the village at the head of the tide- 
waters of the Paskamanset is called, is very attractive. There are many other beautiful spots 
within the domain of the old town — neitlier of its divisions being without them. Our fellow- 
citizen, William Allen Wall, Esq., by a series of paintings in water colors, has, at the same 
time, exhibited the beauty of our local scenery, and his own rare artistic talent in its delin- 
eation. 

t "From Eastport to Westport" was tlie i^xprcssloii that defined Uu; eastern and v.esteni 
coast limits of Massachusetts before Maine became a State. 

t Westport River. 



114 

From cots of sturdy freemeu spread, 
From *Pachachuck to Eiver-Head! 
No spot upon the southern shore, 
A nobler race of freemen bore: 
To God and country true. 

XII. 

The patriot's plea was urged in vain 5 
The dogs of war are loose again. 
From o'er the stately f Dartmouth's side 
To ruin in the rushing tide, 
By patriot hands is hurled the tea. 
An offering dear to liberty. 
At Bunker Hill and Lexington 
Are freedom's battles fought and won. 
From Georgia's hot palmetto plain, 
North to the pine-clad hills of Maine, 
And from the broad Atlantic's shore 
To Niagara's thundering roar, 

War's ensigns are unfurled: 
War on the mountain and the plain — 
War on the river and the main — 
War in the crowded city's street — 
War in the hamlet's lone retreat; 
Wide o'er the groaning land we see 
By war's death-dealing enginery, 

The storm of ruin hurled. 

, XIII. 

And who the foeman? whose the hand, 
That wields the bloody battle-brand, 

* Wcstport Point. 

t The ship Dartmouth, of Bedford in Dartmouth, New England. Slie was owned by 
Francis Rotch. 



115 

That brings upon .the bleeding land 

The storm of war again? 
Does a new Philip head the strife, 
With tomahawk and scalping knife? 
Has PoNTiAc's shade returned to life? 

And. have the mighty twain. 
Summoned from forest, field and flood, 
Their warriors to the work of blood ? 

XIV. 

The ranks by Howe and Pigot led, 

Which strewed the hill-side with their dead. 

And twice in rage and terror fled 

From Prescott's patriot band — 
The foe o'erthrown at Bennington, 
Where Stark the double conflict won — 
The haughty Burgoyne's boasted power. 
At Saratoga brought to cower 

To gallant Gates' command — 
The squadrons which in terror yield 
At Trenton's glorious battle-field — 
The thousands which without a blow, 
To Washington and Rochambeau, 
With grounded arms and colors cased, 
Subdued, disheartened and disgraced, 
Surrendered ! leaving to the free, 
Sacred to peace and liberty, 

A consecrated land! — 
These are not red men ! not the foe 
Who came in wide-spread storm of woe, 
Summoned a hundred years ago 

From forest, field and flood: 



116 

No fierce Wampanoag leads, the strife; 
No Ottawa grasps the scalping knife, 
To end the nation's infant life, 
In agony and woe. 

XV. 

They came from Gosnold's native land — 
The birth-place of the Pilgeim Band — 

The mother land of all : 
But not like him, new worlds t' explore, 
Sought they the distant western shore: 
And not in Faith' and Freedom's name. 
As Bradford, Standish, Winslow came, 

At Heaven's appointed call. 

XVI. 

It was an autumn day serene, 
Nature still wore her robes of green ; 
As summer, bright the sunny gleam 
On lake and inlet, bay and stream j 
Balmy the quiet western breeze, 
That stirred the gently swelling seas. 
And rustled through the lofty trees, 

On Padanaram's height: 
On Coakset's long and level shore, 
Low is the never-ceasing roar; 
Beneath *Haps' double-crested hill, 
The gently swelling waves are still; 
The Great fNAUSHON, the distant ^Nope, 

* Haps' Hill, thus called by Gosnold, now known as Tlic Round Hills, near the entrance 
of Buzzard's Bay. 

t The largest of the Elizabeth Islands, at one time the favorite residence of James Bowdoin, 
now owned by John M. Forbes, Esq., of Milton. 

\ Martha's Vineyard. 



117 



The sheltered floods of ^ Gosnold's Hope, 
Clear from the crown of Cushnet's slope 
Break sweetly on the sight. 

XVII. 

Below, the rising f village see 
Strong with a vigorous infancy: 
From shop and pier and rocky strand, 
The music of the craftsman's hand 
Is blending with the jovial note 
Poured by the tuneful sailor's throat. 
From many a gallant craft afloat 

On calm Acushnet's tide. 
Beside the rude unfinished quay, 
The modest looking whalers lay; 
While swinging at her moorings near 
Is seen the jaunty privateer; 
Tall ships with flag and pennon gay, 
Bright flashing in the sunny ray, 
With many a gentle sail between. 
Give life and gladness to the scene 

Of beauty and of pride. 
Yet ere this western sun shall set 
Beyond the woods of :|:Seconet, 
The gazer from Acushnet Height 
Shall look upon far other sight — 
Shall see approaching from afar, 
" The pomp and circumstance of war." 

• Buzzard's Bay. Gosnold fared much Uke Columbus. But few of the names given by 
him have been retained. 

t Bedford. 

t Seconet Point, the soutliern extremity of tlie town of Little Compton, R. I., tlie town bor- 
dering on Westport. 

P 



118 

And ere the moon the coming night, 
Shall yield to day her waning light, 
The gazer from Acushnet Height 
Shall look with horror and affright 
On ruin deep and wide. 

XYIII. 

Why on "^ Point Peril's reach of sand, 

Inactive does the fowler stand? 

Why heeds he not the feathered prey 

Which near him wing their southern way? 

Why is his fixed and troubled eye 

Intent upon the western sky? 

" They come ! " he cries — at once he knew 

The hardy boatman's story true : 

That he had seen for many a day, 

A vast and terrible array 

Of ships whose crowded decks betrayed 

The secret of the coming raid, 

With mighty war-craft riding near. 

Along whose lofty sides appear 

The guns which thunder forth the power 

Of Britain in the conflict's hour. 

XIX. 

" They come ! " exclaims the fisher-boy. 
Among the rocks of f Barney's Joy — ■ 
And from the heights of bald f Mishaum, 
The farmer sees the threatening storm: 

* Gooseberry Neck of the maps, in Westport, near Horse Neck. Upon the latter is that 
beautiful beach, the rival of Nahant. This is a noted place for the sportsman. The sea- 
fowl in then- annual migration fiy across this sandy beach, and great numbers are taken. 

t Points of land projecting from the southern shore of Dartmouth. 



119 



" They come ! " he cries, " they come 1 " 
And quickly from Haps' lofty hill 
Starts forth the messenger of ill, 
And through the forest pathway hies 
To where in peace Acushnet lies, 
And shouting as he leaps, he cries, 

" They come ! they come ! they come ! '' 

XX. 

Majestic moves the vast array. 
Nor pauses on its eastern way — 
And now from Ponagansett's height. 
The village group have caught the sight, 
As bending in the gentle gale. 
With streamers gay and sun-lit sail, 
The leader's prow directs the way. 
O'er the smooth surface of the bay, 
To where Acushnet's waters lay 

In evening's calm repose. 
The "■ Carysfort is on the van — 
Secure with traitor t guide she ran; 
Her consorts' guns protect the rear. 
While lofty ships between appear 
In crescent line, whose work of fear 
Their swarming decks disclose. 

XXI. 

A gun ! from :|: Winsegansett shore 
Returns the startling echo's roar: 

* See the address of Mr. Crapo in this publication. 
t Tlie fleet liacl a tory pilot from Padanaram. 

t A part of Sconticut Neck, the southern extremity Of Fairhaveu, Ibrmins tlie eastern sliorc 
of the lower part of the Acushnet. 



120 



Each ship th' appointed signal hears, 
And quickly to the windward veers; 
With sails aback, like generous steed 
Checked in his swift and graceful speed, 
The convoy in its proud array 
Rests on the bosom of the bay. 
It is the boatswain's whistle shrill 
That darts along the waters still ; 
The ponderous anchor loosened now, 
Drops from each vessel's stately prow ; 
With magic speed and hearty clieers, 
The furling canvas disappears ; 
Ranged by the transports' lofty side 
The boats are resting on the tide. 
Wide o'er the quiet waters float 
The sound of drum and bugle's note : 
The boats below in order wait; 
And quickly with a warrior freight, 
Each to the gunwale laden deep, 
They onward to * Clark's headland sweep. 

XXII. 

Ne'er had yon island-belted bay 
Beheld so gallant an array : 
No foe so mighty e'er before 
Had landed on New England's shore. 
The ships are swinging to the tide; 
While o'er the parting waters glide 
Long lines of boats, by bending oar 
Moved quickly to the fated shore. 
The glassy surface of the bay 

* Clark's Point, the southern extremity of New Bedford, running out into Buzzards Bay. 



121 



Reflects the hues of parting day; 

Each red-clad warrior's burnished gun 

Is flashing in the setting sun, 

Which brightens with its closing ray, 

Saint George's meteor standard gay, 

Drooping in graceful lines of red, 

From mizzen-peak and topmast-head. 

The stately barge that proudly bore 

The lordly chief, has reached the shore : • 

And ere the gently fading light 

Had yielded to the reign of night. 

Ranged on that woody headland's strand, 

Four thousand veteran warriors stand. 

XXIII. 

Now moving to their destined prey. 
The close-formed ranks are on their way. 
And soon they reach the gentle rise, 
Whence to the east the village lies. 
A halt — and does the veteran * Grey, 
The work of spoil and vengeance stay ? 
Say, does he at this lovely hour, 
Brief homage pay to beauty's power, 
And pause ere to the spoiler's hand 
He gives the desolating brand, 
To change a scene so sweet and fair, 
To wide-spread ruin and despair. 

XXIY. 

The full-orbed moon a flood of light 
Pours on the bosom of the night; 

* There was but little romance about (leiieral Oroy. lie was a I'eer of England and 
father of Lord Grey of Reform Bill notoriety. 



122 

The quiet waters of the bay 
Are burnished by the gentle ray, 
And calmly on its silvered breast, 
The foeman's ships at anchor rest. 
Below the broad Acushnet's stream 
Is brightened by the silvery beam. 
Which to the vengeful raider's gaze 
The thickly crowded fleet displays — 
The treasure-bearing ships that ride 
At rest upon the gentle tide. 
At hand beneath the gazer's eye. 
The dwellings of the village lie; 
And ranged along the rocky strand, 
Full many a shop and warehouse stand, 
Each on that calm and lovely night, 
Seen clearly in the flooding light. 

XXV. 

And who is he, with gentle mien, 
Now gazing on this lovely scene ? 
Apart he stands, and with delight 
Drinks in the beauty of the night. 
As in that calm and peaceful hour. 
He owns the sway of beauty's power. 
The wood, the village, and the stream. 
With England's loveliest features gleam; 
With soul to love and beauty true, 
He sees clear rising on his view, 
That British home, that cherished spot. 
The home of her, who o'er his lot 
Has spread the shade of doom. 



123 

He thinks not of the war, the raid; 
His heart is with Honora Sneyd : 
And as her features sweet and fair 
Crown every thought and feeling there, 
He from its secret resting place 
Draws the dear image of her face, 
And by the moon-beam's welcome light, 
With rapture views those features bright 

With beauty's richest bloom. 
In that adoring soldier see 
The flower of British chivalry. 
Andre ! — the beautiful and brave I 
So soon to fill a felon's grave. 
No shadow of a coming woe 
Darkens the tender moment's glow; 
No vision sad is imaged there 
Of treason, capture, and despair. 
Andre ! how dark that hour had been, 
Hadst thou that awful future seen ! — 
The patriots stern who speak thy doom- 
The fettered limb, the dungeon's gloom — 

*The gibbet, and the tomb. 

XXVI. 

" Forward ! " — and now the war's array 
Is moving on its northern way. 
A flash, a sharp report, a groan — 
The mighty column passes on. 



* There can be no doubt of the fact of Andre's participation in the raid upon Bedford 
under General Grey. See the official accounts in "The Remembrancer or Impartial Reposi- 
tory of Public Events," 7th vol. p. 36, and Sargent's "Life and Career of Major John Andre," 
page 194. For the incident of the picture see "Irving's Life of Washington," volume 4th, 
page 109. 



124 

The neighbors by the morning light, 
Shall look upon a ghastly sight — 
Shall by the crimsoned road-side spy 
The Dartmouth dead and dying lie : 
Moved to a friendly shelter near, 
The flickering life shall disappear, 
And side by side in death are laid 
These victims of the British raid. 
And ere that raiding host has sped 
Across Acushxet's tidal-head, 
Another volley ringing clear, 
The scattered villagers shall hear: 
True to its mark the missile flies, 
And gallant ^Metcalf bleeding lies. 
His country's martial garb he \rore ; 
His country's loved commission bore : 
To-morrow o'er his honored grave 
His country's shrouded flag shall wave. 
And thrice the volleyed peal shall tell 
That Metcalf for his country fell. 

XXYII. 

The river crossed, the -war's array 
March southward on their weary way; 
And ere the coming morning's light 
Shall lift the curtain of the night, 
Near where their ships at anchor ride, 
Upon the peaceful river's tide, 
Shall bivouac by th' Acushxet's side. 

t See Mr. Crapo's address. 



125 



XXVIII. 

And was the work of vengeauce o'er 
Upon til' Acushnet's moon-lit shore? 
Had Grey his master's Lidding done 
When such a field as this was won — 
When Russell, Cook, and Trafford died, 
And from the gallant Metcalp's side, 
Was gushing forth the crimson tide? 
From whence the wild demoniac cries 
Which from the fated village rise? 
From whence that wide and spreading light 
That bursts upon the startled sight? 
What means that loud, unceasing roar, 
That rolls along th' Acushnet's shore ? 
See by the flame's revealing glare, 
A band of British raiders there : 
Crazed by the demon of the * still. 
They work their vengeful master's will. 
Like furies fierce, in either hand 
They bear aloft the burning brand. 
And speed the midnight work of shame, 
By spreading wide the raging flame. 
See them from store to store-house go. 
And blazing brands around them throw; 
Nor do they in their fury spare. 
The humble village dwellings there. 
Not Metacomet's Indian band, 
When, at their sagamore's command. 
Descending in an awful flood 
Of desolating flame and blood, 

• The distillery was one of the first buildings destroyed, and the excesses of the soldiers 
WerO) no doubt, to a great extent, owing to the contents of the vats. 

Q 



126 

A hundred years before, 
They shouted in their savage glee. 
The white-man's burning home to see, 
The tortured prisoner's agony, 

And murdered victim's gore, 
With deeper hate or fiercer joy. 
Went to their demon-like employ. 

XXIX. 

And now a flood of flame and smoke 

Wide o'er the fated village broke. 

Hope, home and dear-bought wealth expire 

Wrapped in a winding sheet of fire ! 

The river's placid breast below 

Reflects the fiery column's glow, 

Revealing in its horrid glare 

The treasure-laden vessels there. 

Quickly the frenzied raiding crew, 

The helpless, floating, prey pursue. 

The flames upon the river's side. 

At once a ready torch supplied; 

And while from burning village site, 

Undimmed, the arch of lurid light 

Illumes the bosom of the night. 

Forth from the crowded fleet there came 

Another pyramid of flame. 

Joining its awful light and roar. 

To fiery column from the shore. 

And now towards the reddened sky, 

The mingled flames are mounting liigh, 

And with the brightest glare of day, 

Spreading o'er river, hill and bayj 



127 

And witli a telegraphic glare, 
Shall wide the tidings sad declare, 
That by the British foemau's raid, 
AcusHNET is in ruin laid — 
That on Old Dartmouth's wide domain 
The storm of war has burst again — 
And that in blood and flame and tears 
Has closed the century of years. 

XXX. 

One hundred years have rolled away ; 

Since England, in a luckless day, 
Strove to enforce a tyrant's sway 

Upon this western world; 
And near a century of years, 
On history's sealed page appears. 
Since by the haughty Briton's hand 
Fierce on our firm united land 

The bolts of war were hurled — 
Again by sad and mournful fate. 
Fair Dartmouth's homes made desolate. 

XXXI. 

What means that weeping widow's wail. 
And what that sorrowing orphan's tale? 
Why flow that mourning mother's tears? 
And whence that father's brooding fears? 
And why with every passing hour, 
Flashed by the swift-winged lightning's power, 
Come tidings from the field and flood, 
Of rapine, ruin, and of blood? 



128 



XXXII. 

The dogs of war arc loose again — 
War on the mountain and the plain — 
War on the river "and the main — 
War in the crowded city's street — 
War in the hamlet's lone retreat — 
Wide o'er the land the work we see 
Of war's death-dealing enginery. 

XXXIII. 

You crave not of the muse to-day 

The story of the mighty fray: 

Small need have I the tale to tell, 

Why * Randall fought, why f Rodman fell, 

It was a fratricidal blow 

That laid our noble townsman low — 

A brother's and a traitor's hand 

That crushed the glorious Cumberland ! 



* William Pritcliard Eandall, of New Bedford. 

" We reached the deck. There RandaU stood : 

' Another turn, men, — so ! ' 
Calmly he aimed his pivot gtm : 

' Now, Tenny, let her go ! ' 

"Brave Randall leaped upon the gun, 

And waved his cap in sport; 
' Well done ! well aimed ! I saw that shell 

Go through an open port.' 

" It was our last, our deadliest shot ; 
The deck was overflown ; 
The poor ship staggered, lurched to port, 
And gave a living groan. 

" On board the Cumberland, March 8, 18G2." . By George H. Bokeb. 

t Lieutenant Colonel William Logan Rodman, of New Bedford, killed at Port Hudson, May 
27th, 18G3. He was attached to the 38th regiment. New Bedford paid a large part of her 
debt to the country when she sent Colonel -iUodman to the battle fields of freedom. But he 
stands not alone. Of " living valor in the field," and of " valor sunk to rest," New Bed- 
ford, and the to'svns which, with her, once formed the territory of Old Dartmouth, can display 
a roll at which their children will not need to be ashamed when the muse of history shall 
make the enduring record. 



129 

XXXIV. 

Hail! to our Chiefs on sea and land' 
All honor to the warrior band, 
Who firm a living bulwark stand: 

Green be the soldier's bays; 
To living valor in the field, 
To valor sunk to rest, we yield 
• Our gratitude and praise. 



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